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imAf'f  '>>"■■  •-■:r.'^->-' 


THE  T.   R  G. 

HARRISON 


COLLECTION  DF 
lilNETEENTH 
IrITISH  SOCIALHIpfQR^' 


"•     ••<.•;'.'>       -^ 


DA    .        '"'  -'"^S^ 


vo 


1.1 


«^  ■.« 


^ 


f 


7  ^^ 


V     ^ 


I 


COBBETT'S 


TWO-PENNY    TRASH; 


OR, 


POLITICS  f5r  the  poor.       iV.1 


VOLUME  I- 


fbUim  jrvxt-r,  1830,  TO  Jlrxarxsy  idsi,  x«rox>irszvs. 


LONDON: 

PRINTED  BY  THE  AUTHOR,  AND  SOLD  AT  No.  xi,  BOLT-COURT,  FLEET. 
STREET  J  AND  MAY  BE  HAD  OF  ALL  BOOKSELLERS. 


1831. 


c^. 


V 


aaoo 


CONTENTS. 


ho, 

1.  Introduction.  To  tKe  Weaver 

Boys  of  Lancashire.  Privy 
Councillors  and  Consuls. 
Equal  Laws.  King's  Death. 
Emigration. 

2.  To    the    Working    Classes 

throughout  the  Kingdom. 
State  of  Things  in  France. 
History  of  England. 

3.  To   the  Working  People  of 

England  and  Scotland.  His- 
tory of  England. 

4.  To  the  Industrious  Classes  at 

Botley,  in  Hampshire.  Pe- 
tion  to  the  King. 

5.  Fires  in   Kent  and   Sussex. 

To  the  Working  People  of 
England. 

6.  To  the  Farmers  of  the  County 

of  Kent,  on  the  Measures 
which  they  ought  at  this 
Time  to- adopt  and  pursue, 
in  order  to  preserve  their 
Property,  and  restore  their 
Country  to  a  state  of  Peace 
and  Harmony. 

7.  To  the  Labourers   of  Eng- 

lanfl,on  the  Measures  which 
ought  to  be  adopted  with 
regard  to  the  Tithes,  and 
with  regard  to  other  Pro- 
perty, commonly  called 
Church-property. 


8.  A  Letter  to  the  King's  Minis* 

ters  on  the  Way  to  put  a 
stop  to  the  Fires.  To  the  La- 
bourers, on  their  Duties  and 
their  Rights.  To  the  Folks 
of  Botley  on  the  Fire  at  Fle- 
ming's House  at  Stoneham 
Park. 

9.  To  the  Labourers  of  Eng- 

land, particularly  those  of 
Kent,  Sussex,  HantSjWilts, 
Dorset,  Berks,  and  Suffolk ; 
on  the  Scheme  now  on  foot 
for  getting  part  of  them 
away  out  of  their  Native 
Country.    Preston  Cock. 

10.  To  the  Labourers  of  Eng- 

land, on  the  subject  of  Par* 
liamentary  Reform.  In- 
structions to  Labourers  for 
raising  Cobbett's  Corn. 
About  Truck-System,  and 
about  Preston  Cock. 

11.  To  the  Working  People  of 

the  whole  Kingdom,  on  the 
Effects  which  a  Parliamen- 
tary Reform  will  have  with 
regard  to  them.  "  Libe- 
ral''Whig  Prosecution.  To 
the  Conductors  of  the  Paris 
Journals. 

12.  SoRPLUs  Population  ;  a  Co- 

medy, in  Three  Acts. 


No.  I. 


COBBETT'S 


TWO-PENNY    TRASH 


For  the  Month  of  Juhj,  1830. 


INTRODUCTION. 

Bristol,  25th  June,  1830. 
1.  The  object  of  this  publication  is,  to  explain  to  the 
people  of  this  kingdom  what  it  is  that,  in  spite  of  all  the 
industry  and  frugality  that  they  can  practise,  keeps  them 
poor.     The  causes  of  the  poverty  of  the  sluggard,  the  glut- 
ton, the  drunkard,  and  the  squanderer,  need  no  explanation; 
poverty  is  the  natural  effect  of  ^ese  vic4si^rife  is  Ihe  punish- 
ment which  God  himself  has  said  shall  be  the  reward  of 
these  offences  against  his  laws.     But  this  nation  is  now  in 
such  a  state^  that  no  industry,  no  care,  no  ingenuity,  no 
prudence,  no  foresight,  no  frugality,  can  give  a  man  security 
against  poverty.   This  was  the  happiest  country  in  the  world  ; 
it  was  the  country  of  roast  beef;  it  was  distinguished  above 
all  other  nations  for  the  good  food,  good  raiment,  and  good 
morals,  of  its  people;  and  it  is  now  as  much  distinguished 
for  the  contrary  of  all  of  them. 
'  2.  It  is,  therefore,  to  explain  to  the  suffering  people  at 


London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street ; 
and  sold  by  ail  Booksellers. 

B 


2  Two-penny  Trash; 

large,  the  causes  of  this  lamentable  change,  that  this  little 
cheap  work  is  intended ;  and  the  reasons  why  it  has  the 
title  of  Two-pe7iny  Trash,  and  why  it  is  to  be  published 
only  monthly,  are  as  follows:  from  1801  to  1817,  I  pub- 
lished the  Weekly  Political  Register,  at  the  price,  first  of 
ten-  pence,  then  of  a  shilling ;  but  just  before  the  com- 
mencemeiit  of  the  last-mentioned  year,  I,  in  order  to  give 
my  writings  a  wide  spread,  laid  aside  the  stainp,  and  sold 
the  Register  for  two-pence ;  and  instead  of  selling  about 
two  or  three  thousand  a  week,  the  sale  rose  to  sixty  or 
seventy  thousand.  The  effect  was  prodigious ;  the  people 
•were  every-where  upon  the  stir  in  the  cause  of  parliament-' 
ary  reform;  petitions  came  to  the  Parliament  early  in  1817, 
from  a  million  and  a  half  of  men. 

3.  The  answers  to  these  petitions  were,  laws  to  enable 
the  ministers  to  take,  at  theif  pleasure,  any  man  that  they 
might  suspect  of  treasonable  intentions ;  to  put  him  into 
any  jail  and  any  dungeon  that  they  might  choose ;  to  keep 
him  there  for  any  time  that  they  might  choose;  to  deprive 
him  of  the  use  of  pen,  ink,  and  paper ;  to  keep  him  from  the 
sight  of  parents,  wife,  children,  and  friends ;  and  all  this  on 
their  own  mere  will,  and  at  their  sole  pleasure,  without  regu- 
lar commitment,  without  confronting  him  with  his  accuser, 
without  letting  him  know  who  was  his  accuser,  and  without 
stating  even  to  himself,  what  was  his  offence! 

4.  The  principal  ministers  at  this  time  were.  Liver pooi, 
(Jenkinson),  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury;    Eldon    (John 

X  Scott),  Lord  Chancellor;  Sidmouth  (Addington),  Secre- 
tary of  State  for  the  Home  Department;  Castlereagh 
(Stewart),  for  the  Foreign  Department;  Ellenborgugii 
(Law),  Chief  Justice  of  the  Kings  Bench.  Sidmouth, 
when  he  brought  in  this  horrible  bill,  rested  the  necessity  of 
it  on  the  fact,  that  the  cheap  publications  were  exciting  the 
people  to  sedition;,  that  they  were  read,  not  only  in  every 


1 


1st  July,  1830.  d 

town  and  house,  but  in  every  hamlet,  every  cottage,  ancj 
^yery  hovel ;  and  that  therefore  this  power-of-imprison^ 
ment  law  was  necessary  to  the  safety  of  the  state.  Wheu 
^.ORD  Holland  observed,  that  if  the  authors  of  the  cheap 
'publications  put  forth  any- thing  of  a  treasojiable  or  sedi^ 
^iOM5  nature,  or  any-thing  hostile  to  good  morals,  there  were 
cklready  laivs  to  punish  them,  that  it  was  the  business  of  the 
law-officers  to  enforce  these  laws,  and  tha}:  there  was  no- 
i^eed  for  this  new  and  violent  outrage  on  the  constitution  of 
our  fathers  for  putting  into  the  hands  of  the  ministers  this 
absolute  and  terrible  power  oyer  the  bodies  of  all  the  people  : 
when  Lord  Holland  made  these  observations,  Sidmouth 
answered,  that  all  the  cheap  publications  hsid  been  laid  be^ 
fore  the  law -officer  Sy  but  that,  so  crafty  were  the  writers 
become,  that  the  law-officers  had  been  able  to  find  nothing 
to  prosecute  with  any  chance  of  success  ! 

5.  Upon  this  ground  this  tremendous  law  w^as  passed,  the 
great  defenders  of  it  in  the  House  of  Commons  being,  Cas- 
tlereagh.  Canning,  William  Lamb,  William  Elliott,  and 
some  others,  whose  names  I  do  not  now  recollect.  The 
Whigs,  as  they  were  called,  made  a  feeble,  and,  indeed,  a 
mere  sham  opposition  to  it,  while  Burdett,  who  had  by  ^ 
circular  letter,  signed  with  his  own  7iame,  urged  the  people, 
all  over  the  country,  to  come  resolutely  forward  in  the  cause 
of  reform,  sat  in  the  House,  and  said  not  one  single  word 
in  their  defence  ! 

6  I,  whose  cheap  publications  had  produced  the  terrific 
effect,  must  have  been  blind  indeed,  not  to  see  that  a  dun- 
g eon  or  silence,  w^as  my  doom.  I  chose  neither;  and, 
therefore,  I  took  my  body,  and  the  bodies  of  my  family^ 
across  the  Atlantic  ;  and  thence,  to  the  cruel  disappoint- 
ment and  mortification  of  Addi^^gton,  Scot-t^  Law,  and 
C^.j  I  sept  to  London  a  Two-penny  Register,  to  be 
p^biished  once  ^  week^  and  it  was  published  once  ^  week,  as 

B  2 


4  Two-penny  Trash; 

punctually  as  if  I  had  been  in  London.  The  fate  of  numerous 
other  of  the  poor  petitioning  reformers  proved  the  wisdom 
of  my  precaution,  in  taking  myself  and  family  out  of  Sid- 
mouth's  reach.  Some  lost  their  health,  others  their  senses, 
one  destroyed  himself  in  his  dungeon ;  and  those  who  came 
out  alive  and  in  health  and  sane,  were  totally  ruined,  and 
the  married  men  found  their  families  starving,  or  dead ; 
and  when  they^;  humbly  petitioned  for  redress  for  those 
wrongs,  and  for  a  knowledge  of  their  crime  and  their 
accusers,  they  were  referred  to  an  act  that  had  just  been 
passed,  bearing  harmless  all  those  who  had  had  a  hand  in 
imprisoning  and  punishing  them,  eve'A  beyond  the  limits  of 
the]horrible  law  itself  ! 

7.  It  is  useless  to  burst  out  into  execrations.  .We  must 
lceep]ourselves  cool,  and  endeavour  so  to  act  ourselves,  as  to 
prevent  the  like  of  this  from  happening  in  future.  This 
liorrible  law  having  ceased  in  1819,  I  came  back  to  Eng» 
land,  late  in  the  month  of  November  of  that  year;  and  I 
found  the  Parliament  preparing  an  act  to  meet  me.  The 
cheap  publication  w^as  still  going  on  :  it  had  out-lived  Sid- 
mouth's  law  :  it  w^as  now  found  to  be  useless  to  pass  power- 
of-imprisonment  laws  to  put  it  down ;  for  the  only  effect 
would  be  another  trip  for  me  across  the  Atlantic.  Now, 
then,  a  new  invention  was  resorted  to  :  an  act  w^as  passed  to 
punish  with  great  severity  any  one  who  should  publish, 
without  a  stamp,  any-thing,  periodically,  that  should  not 
contain  Twore  than  two  sheets  of  paper,  each  sheet  being,  at 
least,  twenty^one  inches  long  and  seventeen  inches  wide^ 
containing  no  advertisements ,  and  no  blank  pages  ;  and 
iesides  this,  the  publication  was  not  to  be  sold  for  less  than 
sixpence  I 

8.  This  act,  generally  called  Cobbett's  Act,  so  loaded  me 
and  my  readers  with  expense,  that  it  reduced  the  circulation 
to  a  tenth  part,  perhaps,  oi  what  it  was  before.     Still  it  kept 


1st  July,  1831.  5 

on  well ;  but,  at  last,  in  1829,  I  determined  to  give  it  the 
wings  aflPorded  by  the  post ;  and  there  it  is  now,  sold  by  me 
for  SIXPENCE  to  the  news-men,  out  of  which  the  Parliament 
takes  only  a  farthing  for  tax  on  the  paper,  and  four 
pence  for  tax  on  the  stamp  ;  leaving  me  a  penny  three 
farthings,  to  pay  for  paper,  print,and  publishing,  to  compen- 
sate me  for  my  labour  as  author,  and  to  fill  my  breast  with 
grateful  feelings  towards  ''  the  envy  of  surrounding  nations, 
and  admiration  of  the  world,"  and  particularly  towards  that 
branch  of  it  which  Sm  James  Graham,  some  time  ago, 
denominated,  the  noblest  assembly  of  free  men  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth  ;  not  knowing,  I  presume,  that  there 
might  be  a  still  nobler  assembly  beneath  the  surface  of  that 
same  earth ! 

9.  Well,  then,  but  how  can  I  now  publish  this  work  ^of 
one  sheet,  and  sell  it  for  two-pence  ?  Why,  the  "  noblest 
assembly ''  made  an  exception  with  regard  to  monthly  pub- 
lications. That  was  very  good  of  the  ''  noblest  assembly." 
To  let  people  read  cheap  publications  oftener  than  once  a 
month  was  dangerous.  Well,  then,  they  can  have  them 
only  once  a  month  :  only  at  every  change  of  the  moon. 
Dear,  good,  kind,  and  careful,  "  noblest  assembly !  " 
Therefore  it  is  that  I  shall  publish  this  little  work  once  a 
month,  and  on  the  first  day  pf  every  month,  at  my  shop. 
No.  11,  Bolt  Court,  Fleet  Street. 

10.  The  name  of  Two-penny  Trash  is  chosen  in  the 
way  of  triumph  over  my  cowardly  and  malignant  foes. 
When  my  two-penny  publication  was  producing  such  great 
eflfect,  in  the  year  1817,  Gifford,  Walter,  Stuart, 
and  the  other  hack-supporters  of  the  system,  called  it 
"  Two-penny  Trash.*'  Nick-names  have  been  fre- 
quently given  to  things  which  have  finally  become  famed 
under  those  very  nick^names.  When  the  Americans  began 
their  noble  stand  against  taxation  without  representation^ 


6  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

our  stupid  and  insolent  commanders  gave  them  the  nick- 
Bame  of  Yankees,  and,  in  derision,  used  to  cause  their 
bands  of  music  to  play  an  air  which  they  called  ^*  Yankee- 
doodle/'  The  Americans  adopted  the  name,  applied  it 
to  themselves,  and  made  the  air  the  national  tune  ;  and 
while  their  drums  beat  and  their  fifes  were  playing  that 
tune  ;  aye,  to  the  beating  and  the  playing  of  that  very  tune^ 
the  noble  and  haughty  Counwallis  and  his  insulting  army 
laid  down  their  arms,  and  the  noble  general  gave  up  his 
sword,  and  acknowledged  themselves  in  captivity  to  these 
same  *'  Yankees  !  "  When  the  people  of  France  resolved  to 
shake  off  that  slavery,  for  enduring  which  we  had  satirized 
them  and  despised  them  for  so  many  ages,  those  who  were 
for  the  change  were  insultingly  called  sans-culottes  ; 
ihat  is  to  say,  men  without  breeches,  or  people  without  the 
means  of  covering  their  nakedness.  They  adopted  the 
uame  ;  and,  in  a  short  time,  every  one  was  ambitious  to  be 
thought  a  ''good  sans-culotte,'*  The  Order  of  the 
Garter  arose  from  contempt  and  ridicule  bestowed  on  that 
insignificant  article  of  dress,  in  consequence  of  a  trifling 
occurrence  at  a  ball  at  which  Edward  III.  was  present; 
Arid  do  we  not  know  that  the  Cross  itself,  which  has  been 
for  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty  years  held  in 
veneration  throughout  the  Christian  world,  was  once  syno- 
Dymous  with  the  gibbet ;  that  it  was  the  sign  and  badge  of 
ignominy  and  infamy  ;  and  that  now  it  hangs  as  an  orna- 
ment even  on  the  bosom  of  beauty  ! 

*'  On  her  white  breast  a  sparkling  cross  she  wore. 
Which  Jews  niight  kiss,  and  infidels  adore.'* 

11.  Upon  the  same  principle  I  adopted  the  name  of 
"  Two-penny  Trash."  Under  that  name  I  took  my 
leave  of  it  when  the  two-sheet-and-more  law  was  passed  ia 
1819,  in  the  following  words  :  *'  And  now,  '  Two-penny- 


•      1st  July,  1830.  ;7 

Tra&b/  dear  little  two-penny  trash,  go  thy  ways.  Thou 
itast  acted  thy  part  in  this  grand  drama.  Ten  thousand 
wagon-loads  of  the  volumes  that  fill  the  libraries  and 
booksellers'  shops  have  never  caused  a  thousandth  part  of  ^.^ 
the  thinking,  nor  a  millionth  part  of  the  stir,  that  thou  hast 
caused.  Thou  hast  frightened  more  and  greater  villains 
than  ever  were  frightened  by  the  jail  and  the  gibbet ;  and 
thou  hast  created  more  pleasure  and  more  hope  in  the 
breasts  of  honest  men,  than  ever  were  before  created  by 
tongue  or  pen  since  England  was  England.  When  thy 
stupid,  corrupt,  malignant,  and  cow^ardly  enemies  shall  be 
rotten  and  forgotten,  thou  wilt  live,  be  beloved,  admired, 
and  renowned.'* 

12.  Two-penny  Trash  is  now  again  come  to  life. 
What  will  be  the  object  of  its  contents  I  have  before 
idescribed,  These  contents  must,  however^  be  pithy ;  they 
rinust  consist  of  opinions  shortly  stated,  of  striking  and  use- 
iul  facts,  and  of  narrations  at  once  brief,  clear,  and  interest- 
ipg.  The  Register  must  be  devoted  to  essays  of  considerable 
length:  to  subjects  for  discussion,  I  shall,  following  the 
^manner  that  I  have  adopted  in  my  other  books,  number 

THE  PARAGRAPHS,  to  make  them  of  easy  reference.  The 
twelve  Numbers  w^ill  make  a  volume  of  two  hundred  and 
eighty -eight  pages,  costing  two  shillings  and  sixpence^ 
and  another  sixpence,  for  binding,  makes  a  neat  little 
book  of  it,  to  be  kept  and  read,  I  hope,  for  a  century  to 
come.  The  last  number  of  the  twelve  will  contain  an 
Index  for  the  volume, 

13.  Booksellers,  or  hawkers,  in  the  country,  will  please, 
.to  apply  to  their  agents,  or  correspondents,  in  London,  as  I 

do  not  supply  any  country  booksellers  from  my  shop.  Beino^ 
published  punctually  on  the  last  day  of  every  month,  the 
Trash  will  very  conveniently  travel  in  company  with  the 
monthly  family  of  Reviews,  Magazines,  tracts,  and  the  like. 


8  Two-penny  Trash; 

which  observe,  however,  I  by  no  means  insinuate  to  be 
Trash  ;  God  forbid  that  I^  or  any  one  else,  should  call 
them  by  that  name. 


TO    THE 

"  WEAVER-BOYS  OF  LANCASHIRE." 

Bristol^  26th  June,  1830. 
My  Friends, 

14.  Now  look  at  the  state  of  the  country,  and  call  to 
your  recollection  the  scorn  with  which  this  name  was  given 
you,  in    1817,   by  those  whom  Mr.  Fitton,  of  Royton, 
most  aptly  denominated,  ''  the   Order  of  the  Pigtail," 
Look  at  the  order  of  the  pig -tail  now  !     They  have  found, 
at  last,  that,  in  spite  of  the  lies  of  "  the  Liar  of  the  North," 
Baines  of  Leeds,  trade  does  not  revive  !     They  have  found 
that  that  which  you  prayed  for  in  1817,  would,  if  it  had 
been  granted,  have  saved  them  ;  they  have  found,  at  last, 
that  if  the  array  had  been  disbanded,  the  interest  of  the 
debt  justly  reduced,  the  pensions,  sinecures,  and  uselesi? 
salaries,  lopped  off,  and  the  Dead  Weight  reduced  to  a  just 
amount;  they  have  now  found,  that  if  these  things  had 
been  done,  they  would  not  at  this  moment  be  compelled  to 
resort  to  a  miserable  and  degrading  system  of  Truck,  in 
order  to  get  the  profits  of  the  shop-keeper,  the  house-owner, 
the  butcher,  the  baker,  and,  as  in  some  parts  of  Stafford  and 
Warwick-shires,  even  the  profits  of  the  barber!     W^hen  the 
*^  Order  of  the  Pig-tail"  were  calling  for  laws  to  prevent 
you  from   overturning  *'  our  happy  constitution  in  Church 
and  State,"  they  little  dreamed  that  the  day  was  so  near  at 
hand  when  they  would  be  compelled,  by  this  happy  thing, 
to  have  their  workmen  shaved  by  the  dozen,  upon  tick,  for 
w^ant  of  money  to  pay  to  the  m.en  to  get  themselves  shaved  ! 
They  get  the  shaving  done  at  tenpence,   or,  perhaps,  six- 
pence a  dozen",  and,  if  the  men  want  the  money,  and  be 
left  to  shave  themselves,  they  cannot  get  the  money,  be- 
cause that  would  deduct  from  the  profits  of  the  employer  : 
he  would  have  a  penny  to  pay  to  each  in  ready  money  ; 
and  they  pay  the  shaver  in  truckl 


•    IstJuly,  1830.  9 

15.  Little  did  they  dream  of  the  approach  of  a  state  of 
things  like  this,  when  they  were  calling  upon  the  govern* 
ment  to  suppress  your  petitions,  and  were  representing  you 
as  bent  (under  pretence  of  seeking  for  parliamentary  reform) 
upon  the  overthrow  of  all  law  and  the  destruction  of  all 
property.  Those  whom  they  then  called  upon  for  laws  to 
shut  you  up  in  dungeons,  have  now  given  them  laws  to  their 
hearts'  content ;  and  as  to  property,  they  have  left  them 
nothing  but  the  name  ;  not  a  man  of  them  having  one  single 
shilling,  on  the  permanent  possession  of  which  he  can  rely, 
as  a  resource  for  his  family. 

16.  Since  I  left  London^  on  the  8th  of  March  last,  I  have 
been  from  London  to  the  mouth  of  the  Thames  ;  from  the 
mouth  of  the  Thames  I  have  been  to  the  mouth  of  the  Hum^ 
her  ',  from  the  mouth  of  the  Humber  I  am  come  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Severn  ;  I  have  ridden  more  than  a  thousand 
miles ;  I  have  walked  about  three  hundred  and  fifty 
miles ;  I  have  made  fifty-four  speeches ;  I  have  been  in 
commercial  towns, manufacturing  towns,  agricultural  towns; 
I  have  conversed  with  merchants,  manufacturers,  trades- 
men, operatives,,  artisans,  and  labourers  ;  and,  every ^where 
in  every  county,  town,  and  village,  I  find  the  same  tale  of 
deep  distress  amongst  all  those  who  do  not  live  on  the 
taxes.  Those  of  the  sufferers  who  besought  the  government 
to  put  you  and  me  into  dungeons,  have,  however,  Dne  great 
consolation ;  namely,  that  it  is  not  Jacobins  and  Radicals 
that  have  brought  these  calamities  upon  them ;  that,  if  they 
be  made  beggars,  as  the  greater  part  of  them  will  be,  they 
have,  at  any  rate,  the  happiness  to  know,  for  a  certainty, 
that  the  beggary  has  not  been  occasioned  by  those  *^  evil-« 
disposed,*'  "designing"  men,  whom  the  Prince  Regent 
expressed  his  noble  determination  to  put  down. 

17.  Yes,  my  friends,  when  these  base  villains,  these  greedy 
and  cowardly  and  barbarous  and  stupid  slaves,  were  exult- 
ing over  our  sufferings  ;  when  they  were  joining  Canning, 
the  insolent  and  empty  Canning,  in  laughing  at  the  ex- 
cruciating tortures  of  poor  Ogden  ;  when  they  were  making 
sport  of  the  bowels  being  forced  out  of  his  aged  body ;  when 
they  were  making  a  jest  of  the  groans  of  so  many  innocent 
victims  of  their  malice  ;  when  they  were  applauding  the 
works  of  Sidmouth;  Castlereagh,   Canning,  Parson  Hay, 

b5 


10  Two*PENNY  Trash; 

Oliver,  Castles,  and  Edwards  ;  when  they  were  shouting  at 
the  fall  of  every  head  that  came  tumbling  from  the  block; 
^^hen  they  were  praising  Burdett  for  his  abandonment  of  us 
^nd  our  cause;  when  they  were  singing  triumph  at  my 
flight  across  the  seas  :  then,  my  friends,  they  little  thought 
of  beholding  times  like  these,  times  which  we  foresaw,  times 
for  which  our  minds  were  duly  prepared,  and  times  in  act- 
ing our  part  with  regard  to  the  consequences  of  which  we 
shall,  I  trust,  not  be  found  wanting. 

18.  I  will,  now,  first  endeavour  to  describe  to  you  the  state 
of  the  country,  and  then  speak  of  the  causes  of  that  state. 
^\\Q  final  consequetices  will  then  appear  to  you  clear  enough ; 
and  you  will  be  duly  prepared  for  those  consequences.     The 
state* of  the  country  is  this:  That  all  the  industrious  and 
useful   classes,    from    the    attorney    and    the   surgeon    and 
physician,   down  to  the    mechanic  and   the  labourer,   are 
"suffering  loss,  privation,  embarrassment,  and  distress;  while 
the   idlers,   and  all  who  live  on  the  taxes,   are  living  in 
luxury ;  that  merchants,  manufacturers,  and  tradesmen,  all 
lind  the  profits  of  their  callings  diminish  daily,  and,  gene- 
' rally  speaking,  themselves  on  the  eve  of  insolvency;  that 
shopkeepers  do  not  sell  half  the  quantity  of  goods  that  they 
-used  to  sell,  and  that  even  those  they  sell  to  little  profit; 
"that  the  farmers  are,  if  possible,  still  worse  oif,  as  their  pro- 
'  duce  sells  for,  on  an  average,  not  more  than  the  half  of  what 
'it  ought  to  sell  for  to  enable  them  to  pay  their  rents,  and  to 
pay  wa,ges  sufficient  for  the  due  sustenance  of  their  work- 
people ;    that    the   working    classes,    those    whose   labours 

•  create  all  useful  things,  are,  therefore,  in  a  state  of  half- 

*  starvation,  and  are  covered  with  miserable  rags,  instead  of 
•that  good  and  decent  clothing  with  which  their  forefathers 

"were  covered. 

19.  Such  is  a  general  description  of  the  state  of  the  coun- 
•ti*y,  the  parliament  of  which,  Sir  James  Graham  tells  ug, 
'is  '^  the  noblest  assembly^'  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  And 
now  for  an  instance  or  two  of  the  wretchedness  of  this  state. 
\  have  lately  passed  through  the  cloth-making  part  of 
Gloucestershire,  and  a  part  of  Wiltshire,  where  the  same 
business  has,  until  lately,  been  carried  on.  Of  all  the  coun- 
tries that  God,  in  his  goodness,  ever  made  for  the  enjoyment 
of  man,  even  in  this  the  most  favoured  land,  this  seems  to 


1st  July,  1830,,  II 

be  the  most  delightful,  and,  for  its  extent,  the  most  valu- 
able. Rich  land,  beautiful  woods,  water  bubbling  from  the 
hills  in  iall  directions,  coal  in  abundance  at  a  short  distance, 
stone  and  slate  the  substratum  of  the  soil,  and  a  fine  corn  and 
dairy  country ^  in  every  direction,  as  you  look  from  the  hills 
that  bound  these  winding  and  ever- varying  valleys,  where  the 
climate  is  so  mild,  and  the  gardens  so  early  and  so  blessed 
with  products.  Yet  this  spot,  under  the  management  of 
the  famous  65^,  has  become  the  abode  of  gaunt  hunger  and 
raving  despair,  saying  to  the  beholder,  *'  These  are  the  effects 
**  of  that  system  of  sway,  the  upholders  of  which  call  it,  the 
*^  *  envy  of  surrounding  nations,  and  the  admiration  of  the 
"  world!'" 

20.  The  innumerable  cloth-mills  in  these  valleys  seem  to 
be  generally  deserted ;  the  drying -grounds  on  these  pretty 
slopes,  which,  a  few  years  ago,  I  saw  so  many  closely^ 
shaven  and  beautiful  lawns ^  have  now  the  long  grass  standing 
to  be  cut  for  hay;  and  the  railings,  ot frames,  for  hanging 
the  cloth  on,  have  no  marks  of  footsteps  near  them,  and  seem 
to  be  gradually  rotting  down ;  while  the  farmers  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood are,  from  the  want  of  employment  for  the  manu- 
facturers, so  loaded  with  poor-rates,  that  many  of  the  farms 
are  let /or  no  rent  at  all,  the  only  condition  being  that  the 
farmer  pay  the  rates',  and  even  this  he  is  unable  to  do 
•without  loss.  At  Malmsbury,  in  Wiltshire,  where  there 
were  two  cloth-mills,  one  is  turned  into  a  grist-mill,  and  the 
other  appears  to  be  nearly  at  a  stand.  At  Calne,  in  that 
county  where  there  were  two  mills,  both  (and  very  fine 
mills)  are  shut  up,  and  the  grass  growing  in  the  walks  and 
paths,  before  kept  bare  by  busy  footsteps.  This,  for  many 
miles  round,  is  a  country  alike  famous  for  corn  and  for 
cheese;  it  is  literally  **  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honeys " 
and  here  human  anxiety  and  misery  reign  supreme  !  Here, 
where  God  has  been  so  bountiful,  the  658  step  in,  and  say 
th^t  enjoyment  and  innocence  shall  be  supplanted  by  want 
and  by  crime ! 

21.  The  farmers  sell  that  cheese  for  405.  a  ton  (2,240lbs), 
which  they  used  to  sell  for  80s.  Their  wheat,  notwithstand- 
ing two  successive  half-crops,  is  at  less  than  half  the  price 
that  it  used  to  be  some  years  back.  They  have  no  stock  on 
hand ;  their  stocks  of  all  kinds  are  becoming  smaller  and 


12  Two-penny  Trash; 

smaller;  their  laud  is  daily  becoming  worse  cultivated; 
their  teams  of  horses  worth  less  and  less ;  their  harness  and 
implements  of  all  sorts  more  and  more  shabby,  and  of  lesa 
and  less  value ;  their  clothing,  and  that  of  their  families, 
more  and  more  mean ;  and  as  to  the  labourers,  their  bodies 
are  clad  in  disgraceful  rags^  and  their  bellies,  when  filled  at 
all,  with  miserable  potatoes,  and  this  amidst  all  this  corn, 
and  meat,  and  milk,  and  butter,  and  cheese  !  Amidst 
this  misery,  crime  stalks  abroad  in  open  day;  the  jails 
have  been  augmented  four-fold  in  the  space  of  a  few 
years !  At  the  Assizes  the  criminals  are  so  numerous  that 
barristers  are  appointed  to  assist  judges ;  no  moveable  pro- 
perty is  safe  out  of  the  security  of  locks  and  bars ;  and  the 
immoveable  is  incessantly  in  danger  from  the  hand  of  vin- 
dictive hunger;  which,  in  many  cases,  has  produced  the 
destruction  of  horses,  oxen,  and  other  animals,  hy  poison! 

22.  Such,  such  taxation  and  paper-money  and  game- 
laws,  are  your  desolating  works  !  Such  are  the  effects  of  a 
Parliament  that  *'  works  so  well,''  and  that  stands  in  need 

"  of  no  reform !  Such  are  the  hitherto  results  of  that  system, 
for  having  prayed  for  a  change  in  which  we  were  driven 
across  the  Atlantic,  crammed  into  dungeons,  and  otherwise 
punished  and  ruined.  Such,  my  friends,  are  the  natural 
and  unavoidable  consequences  of  a  system  that  gives  the 
people  at  large  no  share  in  the  making  of  the  laws  which 
impose  taxes  upon  them,  and  which  dispose  of  those  taxes. 

23.  But,  now,  as  the  chief  object  of  this  work  is  to  ex- 
t'plain  to  the  people  at  large  How  it  is  that  they  are 

MADE  POOR,  I  must  bsgiTi  to  show  the  manner  in  which 
the  system  works  to  produce  the  above-described  effects; 
in  other  words,  to  show  what  are  the  immediate  causes  of 
a  state  of  things  so  unnatural,  so  contrary  to  what  reason 
and  nature  seem  to  prescribe  with  voice  irresistible.  This 
immediate  cause  is,  ENORMOUS  TAXATION  co-ope- 
rating with  laws  making  CHANGES  IN  THE  VALUE 
OF  MONEY.  Let  me  first  speak  of  the  taxation  itself;  and 
afterwards  show  how  the  effects  of  that  have  been  aggravated 
*"by  the  changes  in  the  value  of  money.  If,  with  regard  to 
these  matters,  I  succeed  in  laying  down  the  principles  well 
and  clearly,  it  will  then  be  easy  for  me  to  show  you  why  the 
taxation  is  imposed,  who  it  is  that  profits  from  it,  and  how 


1st  July,  1830.  13 

we  ought  to  go  to  work  to  cause  it  to  be  reduced  so  as  to 
put  an  end  to  the  present  evils,  and  effectually  to  guard 
against  the  like  in  future ;  for,  unless  these  objects  be 
effected,  is  there  a  man  in  his  sober  senses  who  does  not 
fear  that  the  end  must  be  here  similar  to  that  which  took 
place  in  France?  An  end  which  it  is  the  duty  of  us  all, 
low  as  well  as  high,  to  endeavour  to  prevent. 

24.  But,  to  lay  down  those  principles  in  the  manner  that 
I  could  wish,  and  in  a  way  to  make  all  reference  to  them 
easy  and  of  great  and  constant  avail,  would  require  more 
room  than  is  afforded  me  in  this  present  Number.  I  shall, 
therefore,  leave  the  subject  to  be  concluded  in  my  next, 
when  I  shall  again  address  myself  to  you^  your  public  spirit 
and  honest  perseverance  meriting  that  mark  of  respect  at 
the  hands  of  your  faithful  friend  and  most  obedient  servant, 

WM.  COBBETT. 


PRIVY-COUNCILLORS  AND  CONSULS. 

25.  These  are  called  "  right  honourable  ;^^  Lord  Coke 
describes  them  as  **  a  noble  and  reverend  assembly  ;'*  and 
the  new  treason-law  makes  it  high- treason  to  compass, 
that  is  to  say,  to  imagine,  their  death ;  and  under  this  law 
Mr.  Thistlewood,  Ings,  Brunt,  and  Tidd,  were  exe- 
cuted as  traitors,  in  the  year  1820,  soon  after  George  IV. 
became  king.  To  this  reverend  assembly  belong  Hus- 
kisso:n^,  Herries,  Goulbourn,  -Calcraft,  Sid- 
mouth,  and  others,  to  the  amount  of  one  hundred  and 
thirteen  in  number,  leaving  out  the  members  of  the  Royal 
Family.  Now,  on  the  14th  of  May  last.  Sir  James  Gra- 
ham made,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  which  he  called 
**  the  noblest  assembly  in  the  world,"  a  motion  *'  For  an 
"  humble  Address  to  his  Majesty,  for  an  account  of  all 
'^  salaries,  profits,  pay,  fees,  and  emoluments,  whether  civil 
*'  or  military,  from  the  5th  of  January  1829  to  the  5th  of 
*'  January  1830,  held  and  enjoyed  by  each  of  his  Majesty's 
"  most  hon.  Privy  Council,  specifying,  with  each  name, 


14  Two-penny  Trash; 

^^  the  total  amount  received  by  each  individual,  and  dis- 
^'  tinguishing  the  various  sources  from  which  the  same  is 
filf  derived." 

26.  In  support  of  this  motion  Sir  James  made  a  speech, 
and,  in  the  course  of  that  speech,  the  following  statement, 
founded  on  documents  already  in  his  possession;  and  no 
part  of  which  statement  was  contradicted. 

27.  He  had  divided  the  Privy-Councillors  into  classes.  It  wasf 
here  the  place  to  say,  that  in  all  his  calculations  upon  these  sub- 
jects, he  had  always  omitted  the  royal  family,  because  they  having 
a  certain  income  under  the  assignment  of  Acts  of  Parliament,  there 
was  nothing"  mysterious  about  them,  and  in  many  cases  these 
assignments  had  been  made  under  the  sanction  of  Bills,  which  had 
themselves  undergone  long  and  anxious  discussion  in  the  House. 
He  therefore  excluded  them  altogether  from  his  calculations  upo» 
this  occasion.  The  total  number  of  Privy-Councillors  was  1 69  ;  of 
whom  113  received  public  money.  The  whale  sum  distributed  an- 
nually amongst  these  113  was  650, 164/.,  and  the  average  proportion 
of  that  sum  paid  to  each  yearly  was  5,7521. —  (hear.)  Of  this  total 
of  650,164/,,  86,103/.  were  for  sinecures — (loud  cries  of  hear)  ; 
442,411/.  for  active  services,  and  121,650/.  for  pensions,  making" 
together  the  total  which  he  had  stated.  Of  the  113  Privy  Coun- 
cillors, who  were  thus  receivers  of  the  public  money,  30  werejo/w- 
ralistSy  or  persons  holding  more  offices  than  one,  whether,  as  sine- 
curists,  or  civil  and  military  officers.  The  amount  received  by  the 
pluralists  was  221,133/.  annually  amongst  them  all,  or  7,321/.  upon 
an  average  to  each  annually.  The  number  of  Privy  Councillors 
who  enjoyed  full  or  half-pay,  or  were  pensioned  as  diplomatists, 
was  29,  and  the  gross  amount  of  their  income  from  the  public  purse 
was  126,175/.,  or  upon  an  average  a  yearly  income  to  each  indivi- 
dual of  4,347/.  a  year.  The  whole  number  of  Privy  Councillors 
who  were  members  oi  both  Houses  of  Parliament  was  69,  and  of 
those  17  were  Peers,  whose  gross  income  from  the  public  purse  wa^ 
378,846/. —  (hear,  hear) ,  or,  upon  an  average  to  each,  8,065/.  a  year. 

(loud  cries  of  **  hear.")   The  remaining  22  were  of  the  House  of 

Commons,  and  the  gross  amount  of  their  receipts  was  90,849/.,  or 
upon  an  average  to  each  individual,  4,130/.  a  year — (hear.)  It  ap- 
peared then  that  there  were  113  Privy  Councillors  receiving  the 
public  money,  of  whom  69  were  members  of  either  house  of  Par- 
liament. He  had  already  stated  that  29  were  in  the  receipt  of  pub- 
lic money  by  way  of  salary  ;  the  total  number  of  Privy  Councillors 
in  the  House  of  Commons  was  31,  and  of  these  22  were  charged 
upon  the  public  purse.  ^  , 

28.  The  whole  of  the  revenue,  including  expense  oi  collect- 
ing,  amounts  to  about  60  millions  a  year;  the  collection  to 
about  5  millions;  so  that  these  113  men  take  out  of  the 
public  money  an  eighty-eighth  part  of  the  amount  of  the 
whole  of  the  net  revenue  1    Well,  was  the  motion  agreed  to 


1st  July,  1830.  15 

^by  the  "  noblest  assembly?"  Oh,  no !  It  was  rejected  by  a 
^large  majority.  And,  as  you  see,  Sir  James  stated,  that 
69  members'  of  the  two  houses  received  amongst  them 
378,846Z.  out  of  the  public  money,  69  of  them  being  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  17  of  them  peers  ! 

29.  I  shall,  in  the  next  Number,  have  to  show  you,  that  37 
^'years  ago,  the  taxes  amounted  to  J  5  millions  a  year  instead 

of  60  millions;  but,  let  me  now  proceed  to  another  motion 
of  Sir  James  Graham,  relative  to  the  expenditure  of  our 
money  on  Consuls  in  South  America.  He  made  a  motion, 
on  the  11th  June,  to  reduce  the  sums  paid  to  these  people; 
and,  in  the  course  of  his  speech,  made  the  following  state- 
ment, every  word  of  which  I  beseech  you  to  re.ad  with  great 
attention. 

30.  He  would  bepa  with  the  case  of  Mr.  Ricketts,  the  Consul  to 
Peru.     He  went  to  his  post  in  1825,  and  passed  that  year  in  prepa- 
rations, and  in  his  voyage  out,  and  he  received  for  outfit  and  salary 
'that  year  the  sum  of  3,855/.     In  1826,  bein^  at  his  post,  he  re- 
ceived for  salary  2,500L  ;  for  house  rent,  510/. ;  for  a  clerk,  250/,; 
•for  extras,  503/.     Making  in  the  year  1826,  the  sum  of  3,7631.     In 
'1827  he  was  on  his  voyao^e  home,  having:  left  his  post  early  in 
/April,'  and  that  year  he  received  2,812/.     His  Honourable  Friend 

was  very  testy  about  any  charges  being  adverted  to,  previously  to 

the  year  1828  ;  but  his  Honourable  Friend  should  recollect  that 

.most  of  the  Members  now  on  the  Treasury  Benches  are  all  his 

"'Majesty's  Ministers.    Though  they  might  disclaim  the  expenses  of 

1  that  period,  all  formed  a  part  of  Mr.  Canning's  administration. 

<But  passing  from  the  year  previous  to  1828,  he  came  to  that  year 

and  1829,  and  these  two  years  Mr.  Ricketts  was  in  England,  and 

^received  1,600/.  a  year.    This  gentleman,  therefore,  had  been,  un- 

'ider  Lord  Aberdeen's  government,  allowed  to  spend  two  years  in 

f  England  doing  nothing,  at  this  large  salary ;  he  had  passed  one  year 

in  his  voyage  out  and  home,  he  had  been  the  rest  of  his  time  at 

his  post,  and  for  that  period,  not  quite  two  years,  he  had  received 

the  sum  of  13,600/.  (hear,  hear!)     What  he  charged  as  the  most 

'flagrant  part  of  the  case  was,  the  two  years  he  had  been  in  England 

•at  1,600/.  a  year,  and  for  these  two   years  the  present  Foreign 

V  Minister  was  wholly  responsible.    He  then  came  to  the  case  of  Mr. 

^'Nugent,  who  was  or\e  of  those  whose  services  were  not  accurately 

^  stated  in  the  return,  as  he  might  possibly  make  a  mistake.    This 

t^entleman  went  in  1825  to  Chili,  and  received  the  first  year  3,050/. 

-In  1826  he  was  at  his  post,  and  received  2,500/.     In  1827,  as  early 

^as  June,  or  he  believed  he  must  now  say,  as  the  return  was  not 

correct,  in  June  1828,  he  returned  to  England,  and  received  his 

-2,500/.     His  Honourable  Friend  described  the  two  years,  1828  and 

^1829,  as  years  of  economy.  These  two  years  constituted  the  golden 

^iFCign  of  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen — they  were  the  economical  age  not 


16  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

deserving  of  those  sarcasms  which  his  Honourable  Friend  charged 
him  with  usin^,  and  entreated  liim  to  abandon  in  bringing  forward 
his  motion.     His  Honourable  Friend  had  stated,  that  henceforth 
the  Consuls,  when  away  from  their  posts,  were  to  have  only  half 
their  salaries,  but  had  that  not  yet  been  the  case,  as  he  had  already 
stated  with  regard  to  the  Consul  of  Peru,  who  had  received  his 
salary  of  1,600/.   during  the  two  years  he  had  been  in  England; 
and  it  had  not  been  the  case  with  the  Consul  of  Chili,  who  had  re- 
ceived his  salary  under  similar  circumstances,  one  of  whom  had 
received  in  four  years,  the  sum  of  13,600/.,   and  the  other  had 
received  13,050/.   The  next  case  he  would  mention  was  that  of  Mr. 
Mackenzie,  who  in   1826  was   appointed  Consul   to   Hayti.     He 
received  500/.  for  his  outfit,  1,500/.  for  his  salary,  and  215/.  for  his 
voyage  out,  in  all  2,215/.     In  1826  he  was  at  his  pose,  and  received 
2,710/. ;  but  he  begged  to  call  the  particular  attention  of  the  House 
to  the  year  1827.    He  received  in  that  year,  his  salary,  1,5001. ;  for 
a  journey  into  the  interior  of  the  island  he  charged  1,290/.;  his 
house  rent  and  extras  amounted  to  1,070/.     The  Honourable  Ba- 
ronet mentioned  another  sum  of  147/.  and  for  his  voyage  to  Eng- 
land, 192/.,  making  a  total  of  4,179/.     In  1828  he  was  in  England, 
and  in  1828,  when  England  was  under  the  economic  administration 
of  Lord  Aberdeen,  he  received  his  salary  of  1,125/.     He  was  little 
more  than  one  year  at  his  post,  and  for  that  he  received  a  sum  of 
upwards  of  8,000/.     He  then  came  to  the  case  of  Mr.  Shenley,  who 
"was  one  of  those  whose  services  were  mis-stated  in  the  Return. 
He  begged  to   call  the  attention  of  the  House  to  Mr.  Shenley  ia 
particular.    This  gentleman  had  been  sent  as  Vice-Consul  to  Gua- 
temala.    In  1825  he  received  for  his  outfit  300/.,  and  for  his  salary 
700/.;  but  he  did  not  go,  if  he  understood  the  return  correctly, 
that  year.     He  went  out  in  1826.     He  was  at  Guatemala  that  year 
and  in  1827,  and  received  his  salary  of  700/.,  but  before  the  end  of 
3827  he  left  Guatemala :  and  in  1823  he  came  to  England  on  his 
full  salary.     In  1829,  under  Lord  Aberdeen's  Foreign  administra- 
tion, when  the  public  expense  had  been   so  much   reduced,  this 
gentleman  was  appointed  Consul  at  Hayti,  and  received  500/.  fop 
his  outfit.  Unless  the  returns  were  erroneous,  this  was  in  January  ; 
and  between  January  1829  and  January  1830,  he  received  1,200/. 
as  his  salary.    The  House  would  be  surprised  to  learn,  that  he  was 
in  England  yet ;  that  he  had  not  attempted  to  go  out  to  Hayti. 
He  remained  in  England  up  to  that  time,  and  the  reason  for  which 
he  remained,  the  members  of  that  House  would  be  well  able  to  ap- 
preciate. The  reason  on  which  he  remained  in  England  was  urgent 
private  business   (a  laugh).    This  was  a  species  of  reason  which 
would  be  very  intelligible  to  the  Members  of  that  House.     In  1829, 
then,  this  gentleman  received  1,700/.  and  never  left  England  ;  ia 
all,  this  gentleman  had  received  4,859/.     The  pressure  of  business    - 
at  Hayti,  the  House  would  imagine,  could  not  be  very  great ;  but  he 
found  in  the  year  1829,  that  there  was  a  charge  for  two  Vice  Con- 
suls at  Hayti.    As  the  Consul  was  not  present,  the  House  would 
naturally  suppose  that  the  Vice   Consuls  were  there  attending  to 
his  duty.    But  he  found  by  the  return,  that  Mr.  Fisher,  the  Vice 


1st  July,  1830.  17 

Consul,  was  detained  in  England  on  urgent  private  business.  He 
was  in  England  the  whole  of  1628,  receiving  a  salary  of  550/. ;  and 
was  in  England  the  greater  part  of  1829.  The  Consul  was  then  in 
England  ;  the  Vice  Coi»sul  also,  Mr.  Fisher,  was  in  England ;  and 
the  second  Vice  Consul,  the  one  who  was  on  the  spot,  and  did  all 
the  business,  Mr.  Thompson,  received  500/.  a  year  (hear,  hear!). 
He  was  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  say,  to  carry  conviction  to  the 
minds  of  Members,  if  this  failed. 

31.  In  order  to  enforce  his  arguments  in  favour  of  eco- 
nomy, he  cited  the  example  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States  ;  and  made  the  following  true  and  most  interesting 
statement,  the  Hke  of  which  I  have  made,  and  in  print  too, 
over  and  over  again  ! 

32.  He  knew  that  any  allusion  to  the  United  States  of  America 
was  not  generally  very  palatable  to  the  House,  and  he  for  one  did 
not  like  to  institute  comparisons  between  that  country  and  this; 
but  he  held  in  his  hand  (showing  a  small  slip  of  paper),  on  that 
simple  piece  of  paper,  the  account  of  all  the  expenses  of  the  Civil 
Government  of  the  United  States,  including  its  diplomatic  expenses, 
obtained  from  an  authentic  source,  and  with  the  permission  of  the 
House  he  would  read  it:  The  whole  charge  then  for  the  Civil 
Government  of  the  United  States  was — 

For  the  President,  a  salary  of  25,000  dollars  per  year. 

A  Vice  President '  5,000 

Secretary  of  State 6,000 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury ....     6,000 

Secretary  of  War 6,000 

Secretary  to  the  Navy 6,000 

Post  Master    3,500 

A  Chief  Justice 6,000 

Six  Judges , 5,000  each. 

Making,  in  the  whole,  92,500  dollars,  for  the  entire  charge  of  the 
Civil  Government  of  the  United  States,  or,  in  English  money, 
20,812/.  There  were,  besides,  three  Commissioners  of  the  Navy 
with  3000  dollars,  with  a  sum,  which  we  did  not  catch,  for  the 
Major-General,  making  the  whole  charge  for  the  Civil  and  Military 
Government  of  the  United  States^  24,299/. 

33.  There !  And  this,  too,  the  government  of  a  nation 
now  become  our  rival  on  the  seas ;  whose  maritime  power 
now  braves  ours ;  who  has,  in  40  years,  under  this  cheap 
government,  risen  from  a  population  of  3  millions  to  a  popu- 
lation of  12  millions ;  a  nation  whose  government  does  not 
cost  more  than  two-thirds  as  much  in  a  year  as  has  recently- 
been  expended  on  the  carvework  on  one  gateway  of  one 
of  our  King's  palaces !     Well,  surely,  after  all  this,  the 


18  Two-penny  Trash; 

*'  noblest  assembly  "  agreed  to  this  motion  !  No  ;  but  set 
it  aside  by  one  of  its  usual  majoritiesl  No  commentary 
is  necessary.  As  Sir  James  said,  *'  If  this  do  not  carry 
conviction,  nothing  will." 


''  EQUAL  LAWS." 

34.  The  French,  in  their  Revolution,  havingtaken  the  word 
EQUALITY  as  a  sort  of  watch- word,  our  rulers  and  guides 
inveighed  against  it,  as  meaning  that  all  men  ought  to  be 
equal  in  point  oi  property,  and  that  the  idler  and  drunkard 
should  share  in  the  property  of  the  industrious  and  the 
sober.  "  Equality  in  laws"  they  said,  was  good.  The 
other  day,  Lord  John  Russell  was  reported  to  have  said, 
that  the  late  Mr.  Fox,  in  opposing  universal  suffrage ^ 
used  to  say,  that  he  did  not  like  equality  of  rights,  ap- 
plied to  unequal  things',  that  is  to  say,  that  a  man,  who 
had  no  house  or  land,  should  not  have  as  much  right  to 
vote  as  a  man  who  had  house  or  land.  Now,  then,  let  us 
see  how  Fox*s  rule  has  been  observed  in  the  laying  of  taxes 
Tipon  us.  The  tradesman  or  farmer  pays  upon  the  windows 
in  his  house  more  than  25.  a  window,  if  he  have  only  8  ; 
but  any  one,  w^ho  has  more  than  180  windows,  pays  for 
that  more  only  Ls.  6g?.  a  window.  A  receipt  in  full  o^  all 
demands,  has  a  stamp  of  10s.  if  the  sum  received  be  only 
forty-one  shillings ;  and,  if  it  be  a  hundred  thousand 
pounds,  the  stamp  is  the  same.  The  turnpike  toll  for  the 
poor  man's  ass  is  the  same  as  for  the  hunter  or  the  racer ^ 
or  carriage  horse  of  the  lord.  If  a  tradesman,  merchant, 
or  manufacturer,  sell  his  goods  by  auction,  though  the  pro- 
duce of  his  own  hands,  he  has  to  pay  an  auction  duty; 
but,  if  the  lord  sell  his  timber,  his  underwood,  or  the  stock 
ou  his  tenant  for  rent,  he  pays  no  auction  duty.  The 
postage  of  letters  amounts  to  about  two  millions  a  year; 
the  lord  and  members  in  t*  other  place  pay  none  of  this ; 
even  the  soldiers  are  excused ;  but  all  the  rest,  from  the 
merchant  down  to  the  half-starved  labouring  man,  pay  an 


1st  July,  1830.  19 

enormous  postage  on  letters.  Commission- queers*  widows 
have  pensi07is  allowed  them  ;  those  of  non-commissioned 
and  privates  have  not.  There  have,  of  late  years,  beeu 
academies  established  for  the  purpose  of  rearing  and  edu" 
eating  young  gentlemen  for  the  army,  navy,  and  ordnance, 
a  part  of  which  establishment  consists  of  '^  NURSES." 
These  academies  are  maintained  out  of  the  taxes  :  and 
thus  the  working  people,  in  the  tax  on  their  beer,  tea,  soap, 
candles,  sugar,  and  other  things,  are  compelled  to  help  pay 
for  rearing  and  educating  the  sons  of  the  rich.  By  the 
militia  laws,  the  man  who  has  no  property  at  all,  is  com- 
pelled to  come  forth,  to  quit  his  home  and  family,  to  submit 
to  military  discipline,  and,  if  necessary,  to  risk  his  life  in 
defence  of  the  country  or  the  laws  ;  and  the  man  of  a  hun- 
dred thousand  a  year  is  compelled,  at  the  most,  to  do  no 
more  !  These  are  difew,  and  only  a  few,  of  the  things 
which  Lord  John  Russell  might  be  called  upon  to  reconcile 
to  the  pretty  phrase  of  the  famous  senator  Fox  ;  and  he 
might  be  asked  to  explain,  too,  upon  what  principle  the 
Whigs  settled  pensions  for  life  on  the  wife  and  daughters 
of  that  same  Fox  :  and  how  they  came  to  settle  pensions 
cn  foreigners,  in  the  teeth  direct  of  the  Act  of  Settlement. 
We  wait  a  little  for  his  answer ;  but  in  the  mean  while, 
we  may  ask,  whether  these  things  could  ever  have  been,  if 
the  Commons'  House  had  been  chosen  by  the  common 
people. 


"KING'S  DEATH." 

35.  Iisr  this  ancient  and  opulent  and  respectable  city  of 
'Bristol,  of  the  most  beautiful  and  interesting  environs  that 
my  eyes  ever  beheld,  and  inhabited  by  a  people  of  whom, 
though  I  shall  perhaps  never  see  them  again,  it  is  but  bare 
justice  to  say,  are  surpassed  in  good  manners  and  good 
sense  by  none  whom  in  all  my  travels  I  have  ever  seen  ; 
in  this  fine  old  English  city  with  22  parishes,  and  with  all 
the  marks  of  having  been,  centuries  ago,  even  more  opulent 


20  Two-PEXNY  Trash; 

and  populous  than  it  is  now  ;  in  this  city,  to  a  most  respect- 
able audience  in  which  I  concluded  my  third  and  last  Lec- 
ture last  night,  the  bells  are,  to-day  (27th  June),  tolling 
for  the  death  of  the  king,  while  Jlags  are  flying  from  the 
Exchange  and  the  Council  house,  aye,  from  the  churches 
too,  or  at  least,  I  see  one  flying  on  the  Cathedral  church, 
or  as  it  ought  to  be  called,  the  church  of  the  Abbey, 
part  of  the  cloisters  of  which  are  still  remaining.  This 
tolling  and  flag-flying  at  one  and  the  same  time,  and  from 
one  and  the  same  tower,  is,  I  suppose  in  accordance  with 
those  coaflicting  feelings  of  loyalty  so  neatly  expressed  by 
Pope  : — 

'*  And  when  our  SovVeig-n  died,  could  scarce  be  vext, 
•*  Knowiug  that  such  a  gracious  Prince  was  next.'* 

36.  A  future  day  will  come  for  giving  a  history  of  the  reiga 
of  George  the  Fourth,  including  that  of  his  Regency^ 
not  by  any  means  forgetting  the  events  and  the  acts  of  1817, 
1818,  1819,  and  1820.  The  statute-book  records  the  ma- 
terials for  a  true  history  of  his  reign  and  regency  ;  the  pub- 
lic accounts  record  particulars  that  none  but  a  sham  histo- 
rian will  overlook ;  and  as  to  the  state  of  the  people,  we 
"who  yet  remain  alive,  and  are  not  quite  blinded  by  our 
tears,  have  only  to  open  our  eyes.  As  J  am  going  to  Bath 
this  evening,  and  there,  with  apprehensions  of  their  effect,  I 
shall,  I  suppose,  meet  the  London  newspapers,  all  in  dismal 
black,  and  all  the  unaffected  Editors  pouring  out  their  ten- 
der and  loyal  souls  in  filial  wailings  in  verse  as  well  as  in 
prose,  this  time,  at  any  rate,  Til  not  be  behindhand  with 
them;  and  here  is  my  loyal  and  lachrymose  contribution: — 

Old  England  weep,  and  let  thy  g^rief  be  true ; 
For  Sov'reigjn  dearer  nation  never  knew. 


EMIGRATION. 


37.  From  this  port  alone  one  thousand  and  forty-two 
have  gone  to  New  York,  this  spring  and  summer!  The  far 
greater  part  English  people;  and  not  a  few  with  good  sums 


1st  July,  1831.  21 

of  money  *  I  have  not  room  to  say  much  upon  this  subject 
here ;  but  I  cannot  help  putting  my  readers  upon  their  guard 
tigainst  those  who  are  endeavouring  to  inveigle  them  to 
English  colonies,  where  their  ruin  is  certain,  and  their 
death,  in  a  very  short  time,  probable.  Let  them  look  at  the 
iorrible  accounts  from  Botany  Bay  and  other  parts  of  that 
country;  let  them  see  what  they  are  going  to ;  let  them  look 
at  the  thousands  of  poor  creatures  who  have  been  beggared 
by  going  to  the  rocks  and  sands  and  swamps  and  snows 
of  Prince  Edward's  Island,  Nova  Scotia,  New  Brunswick, 
and  Canada;  and  let  them  look  at  my  ^'  Emigrant's 
Guide;"  and,  after  this,  if  they  choose  destruction,  let 
them  have  it.  To  another  new  edition  of  this  little  work 
(price  2s.  6d.)  I  shall  add  a  second  postscript,  containing 
a  list  of  things  that  a  man  ought  to  provide  himself  with 
before  his  departure.  When  this  is  added,  the  book  will 
be  perfect.  Thousands  of  men  of  property,  and  especially 
young  fai^mers,  are  wisely  preparing  to  start :  letters  come 
tumbling  home  from  those  already  there,  pressing  the  rela- 
tions and  friends  to  follow  them.  So  that  the  Borough- 
mongers  and  the  halt  and  the  lame  and  the  blind  and  the 
insane,  together  with  the  pickpockets  and  the  tax-eaters,  will, 
in  time,  be  left  to  form  a  jovial  society,  basking  under  the  sun 
of  the  "  envy  of  surrounding  nations  and  admiration  of  the 
world.''  Of  one  thing  let  every  soul  be  satisfied ;  and  that 
is,  that  the  misery  must  here  c#ntinue  to  be  greater  and 
greater,  until,  by  some  means  or  other,  there  shall  be  effected 
a  Radical  Reform  of  the  Commons',  or  people's.  House  of 
Parliament. 


22  Mr.  Cobhett's  List  of  Books, 


'ii,h.  All  the  Books  under mentionedy  are puhlishcd  at  No,\\y  BolU 
court.  Fleet-street y  London  ;  and  are  to  he  had  of  all  tJie  Booh* 
sellei^s  in  the  Kingdom, 

THE    COBBETT-XiZBItARY. 

When  I  am  asked  what  books  a  young  man  or  young  woman 
ought  to  read,  1  always  answer.  Let  him  or  her  read  all  the  books 
that  I  have  written.  This  does,  it  will  doubtless  be  said,  smeU  of 
the  shop.  No  matter.  It  is  what  I  recommended  ;  and  experience 
has  taught  me  that  it  is  my  duty  to  give  the  recommendation.  1  am 
speaking  here  of  books  other  than  THE  REGISTER;  and  even 
these,  that  I  call  my  LIBRARY,  consist  of  twenty -six  distinct 
books  ;  two  of  them  being  translations  -y  six  of  them  being  writ- 
ten BY  MY  sons  ;  one  (Tull's  Husbandry)  revised  and  edited,  anti 
one  published  by  me,  and  written  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  O'Callaghan, 
a  most  virtuous  Catholic  Priest.  I  divide  these  books  into  classes, 
as  follows  :  1.  Books  for  Teaching  Language;  2.  On  Domestic 
Management  and  Duties;  3.  On  Rural  Affairs;  4.  Ou  the 
Management  of  National  Affairs;  5.  History  ;  6.  Travels  ; 
7.  Laws;  8.  AIiscellaneous  Politics.  Here  is  a  great  variety  of 
subjects;  and  all  of  them  very  f/?'^;  nevertheless  the  manner  of 
treating  them  is,  in  general,  such  as  to  induce  the  reader  to  go 
through  the  booky  when  he  has  once  begun  it.  I  will  now  speak  of 
each  book  separately  under  the  several  heads  above-mentioned, — 
N.  B.  All  the  books  are  hound  in  boards,  which  will  be  borne  in 
mind  when  the  price  is  looked  at. 


1.  BOOKS  FOR  TEACHING  LANGUAGE. 

COBBETT'S  ENGLISH  GRAMMAR.  {Price  S^.)— This  is  a 
book  oi principles y  clearly  laid  down  ',  and  when  once  these  are  got 
into  the  mind  they  never  quit  it. 

COBBETT'S    FRENCH   GRAMMAR    {Price  bs,)  ;  or.    Plain 
Instructions  for  the  Lrarning  of  French. — More  youn^  men  have,  I* 
dare  say,  learned  French  from  it,  than  from   all  the  other  books 
that  have  been  published  in  English  for  the  last  fifty  years. 

MR.  J  AMES  COBBETT'S  ITALIAN  GRAMMAR  (Price  6**.)  ; 
or  a  Plain  and  Compendious  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Italian. — 
1  would  pledge  myself  to  take  this  book  and  to  learn  Italian  from 
it  in  three  months. 


2.  DOMESTIC  MANAGEMENT  AND  DUTIES. 

COBBETT'S  COTTAGE  ECONOMY  {Price  2s.  6d.)  ;  con- 
taining information  relative  to  the  brewing  of  Beer,  making  of 
Bread,  keeping  of  Cows,  Pigs,  Bees,  Ewes,  Goats,  Poultry,  and 
Rabbits,  and  relative  to  other  matters. 

COBBETT'S  ADVICE  TO  YOUNG  MEN,  and  (incidentally) 
to  Young'  Women,  in  the  middle  and  higher  Ranks  of  Life  {Price  bs.) 
It  was  published  in  14  numbers,  and  is  now  in  one  vol.  complete. 


Mr,  Cobbetfs  List  of  Books.  23 

COBBETT'S  SERMONS  (Price  35.6^.)— More  of  these  Sermons 
have  been  sold  than  of  the  Sermons  of  all  the  Church-parsons  put 
together  since  mine  were  published. 

COBBETT'S  EDITION  OF  TULL'S  HUSBANDRY  (Price 
15s0  :  THE  HORSE-HOEING  HUSBANDRY;  or,  A  Treatise 
on  the  Principles  of  Tillage  and  Vegetation,  wherein  is  taught  a 
Method  of  introducing  a  sort  of  Vineyard  Culture  into  the  Corn- 
Fields,  in  order  to  increase  their  Product  and  diminish  the  com- 
mon Expense. 

3.  BOOKS  ON  RURAL  AFFAIRS. 

COBBETT'S  YEAR'S  RESIDENCE  IN  AMERICA,  WITH  A 

MAP  (Price  5s.)  A  book  very  necessary  to  all  men  of  property 
who  emigrate  to  the  Uuited  States. 

COBBETT'S  ENGLISH  GARDENER  (Price  6s.)  A  complete 
book  of  the  kind. 

COBBETT'S  WOODLANDS  (Price  14s.) ;  or,  A  Treatise  on 
Forest  Trees  and  Underwoods^  and  the  Manner  of  Collecting,  Pre«v 
serving,  and  Sowing  of  the  Seed. 

COBBETT'S  CORN-BOOK  (Piice  2s.  6d.)  ;  or,  A  Treatise 
on  Cobbett's  Corn  :  containing  Instructions  for  Propagating  and 
Cultivating  the  Plant,  and  for  Harvesting  and  Preserving  the  Crop; 
and  also  an  Account  of  the  several  Uses  to  which  the  Produce  is 
applied,  with  Minute  Directions  relative  to  each  mode  of  Appli- 
cation.— This  edition  I  sell  at  2a\  6d.,  that  it  may  get  into  jiumei^ous 
hands. 


4.  MANAGEMENT  OF  NATIONAL  AFFAIRS. 

COBBETT'S  PAPER  AGAINST  GOLD  (Price  bs.)  ;  or,  the 
History  and  Mystery  of  the  Bank  of  England,  of  the  Debt,  of  the 
Stocks,  of  the  Sinking  Fund,  and  of  all  the  other  tricks  and  con- 
trivances carried  on  by  the  means  of  Paper  Money. 

COBBETT'S  RURAL  RIDES.  (Price  5s.)  If  the  members  of 
the  Government  had  read  these  Rides,  only  just  read  them,  last 
year,  when  they  were  collected  and  printed  in  a  volume,  they 
could  not  have  helped  foreseeing  all  the  violences  that  have  nov/ 
taken  place,  and  especially  in  these  very  counties ;  and  foreseeing* 
them,  they  must  have  been  devils  in  reality  if  they  had  not  done 
something  to  prevent  them, 

COBBETT'S  POOR  MAN'S  FRIEND  (Price  M.)-,  or,  a  De- 
fence of  the  Rights  of  those  who  do  the  Work  and  fight  the  Battles. 
— ^This  is  vay  favourite  work.  1  bestowed  more  labour  upon  it  than 
upon  any  large  volume  that  I  ever  wrote. 

COBBETT'S  EMIGRANT'S  GUIDE  (2^.  Sd.) ;  in  Ten  Letters, 
addressed  to  the  Taxpayers  of  England. 

USURY  LAWS  (Price  2s.  6d.)  j  or,  Lending  at  Interest; 
also,  the  Exaction  and  Payment  of  certain  Church-fees,  such  as 
Pew-rents,  Burial-fees,  and  the  like,  together  with  forestalling 
Traffic;  all  proved  to  be  repugnant  to  the  Divine  and  Ecclesiasti- 
cal Law,  and  destructive  to  Civil  Society. 


24  Mr.  Cohbetfs  List  of  Books. 

5,  HISTORY. 

COBBETT'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  PROTESTANT  REFOR- 
MATION  in  England  and  Ireland  (Price  4s.  6d.)  ;  showing  how 
that  Event  has  impoverished  and  degraded  the  main  Body  of  the 
People  in  those  Countries  :  PART  II.  [Price  Zs.  6d.)  ;  contain- 
ing a  List  of  the  Abbeys,  Priories,  Nunneries,  Hospitals,  and  other 
Religious  Foundations,  in  England  and  Wales,  and  in  Ireland, 
confiscated,  seized  on,  or  alienated,  by  the  Protestant  '*  Reforma- 
tion" Sovereigns  and  Parliaments. 

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Actium.  Vol.11.  An  Abridged  History  of  the  Emperors,  in 
French  and  English  :  being  a  continuation  of  the  History  of 
THE  Roman  Republic. — This  work  is  intended  as  an  Exercise-book 
to  be  used  with  my  French  Grammar ;  and  it  is  sold  at  a  very  low 
price f  to  place  it  within  the  reach  of  young  men  in  general. 

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OF  GEORGE  IV. — This  work  is  published  in  Nos.  at  6d.  each,  and 
shall  do  justice  to  the  late  *'  7nild  and  merciful"  King. 

LAFAYETTE'S  LIFE  {Price  Is.)  A  brief  Account  of  the  Life 
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6.  TRAVELS. 

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Covenafits,  Power,  &;c.  Founded  upon  the  Treaties  and  Customs 
of  Modern  Nations  in  Europe. 

MR.  WM.  COBBETT'S  LAW  OF  TURNPIKES    (Price  35.  6rf.) 

8.  MISCELLANEOUS  POLITICS. 
THE  REGISTER,    published  'Weekly ,  Price  Is.  2d,  Sixty-four 

pages. 

TWO-PENNY  TRASH,  published  monthly,  Price  2d.,  \2s,  M. 
for  a  hundred,  and  Us.  a  hundred  if  300  or  upwards. 

This  is  the  Library  that  I  have  created.  It  really  makes  a  tole- 
rable shelf  of  hooks ;  a  man  who  understands  the  contents  of  which 
may  be  deemed  a  man  of  great  information.  In  about  every  one 
of  these  works  I  have  pleaded  the  cause  of  the  working  people^  and 
I  shall  now  see  that  cause  triumph,  in  spite  of  all  that  can  be  done 
to  prevent  it. 

N.  B.  A  whole  set  of  these  books  at  the  above  prices,  amounts  to 
71,  Os.  2d.  ;  but,  if  a  whole  set  be  taken  together,  the  price  is  61. 
And  here  is  a  stock  of  knowledge  sufficient  for  any  young  man  in 
the  world.         ^ ^ 

[Printed  by  Wm.  Cobbett,  Johnson's-court,  Fleet-street.] 


No.  11. 


COBBETT'S 
TWO-PENNY  TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  August,  1830. 


TO    THE 

WORKING  CLASSES  THROUGHOUT  THE 

KINGDOM. 

*  Barn-Elm  Farm,  27th  July,  1830. 

My  Friends, 

38.  I  have  to  talk  to  you  on  several  subjects,  all,  however, 
CQnnected  with  the  things  which  are  the  causes  of  your 
being  miserably  poor,  which  millions  of  you  are,  and 
which  ought  to  be  the  state  of  nobody  that  is  industrious, 
sober,  frugal^  and  honest.  Such,  however,  is  now  the  state 
of  England ;  such  the  burdens  that  the  people  have  to  bear  ; 
so  large  the  portion  of  every  man's  wages  that  is  taken  away 
by  the  Government ;  that  no  industry,  no  sobriety,  no  fru- 
gality, and  no  honesty,  can  prevent  the  working  class  from 
being  miserably  poor,  from  being  wretched  to  a  degree  in- 
consistent with  the  support  of  life  and  health.     How  such 

London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street, 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 

C 


26  Two-PEKNY  Trash; 

enormous  burdens  came  to  be  laid  on  the  people  I  shall 
hereafter  explain  ;  but,  first  of  all,  it  is  necessary  that  I 
make  you  clearly  understand  that  it  is  the  taxes  that 
make  you  poor;  and  that  your  poverty  is  great  you  all  but 
too  well  know.  The  state  of  England  is  more  degrading  to 
the  people,  exhibits  more  human  suffering,  than  ever  ws 
even  heard  of  before  in  any  country  on  earth,  Ireland  only 
excepted ;  and  there  nakedness  and  famine  are  so  common 
as  to  excite  neither  surprise  nor  compassion. 

,  39.  That  it  is  the  taxes  v^'hich.  produce  all  this  misery  is, 
first,  my  business  to  show  ;  and,  next,  to  show  you  what  is 
the  cause  of  the  taxes.  As  to  the  first,  there  are  some  so 
impudent  as  to  assert,  and  others  so  ignorant  as  to  believe, 
that  working  people  pay  no  taxes,  because  the  tax-gatherer 
does  not  come  and  take  money  out  of  their  hands.  But 
let  us  see  how  this  matter  stands.  The  whole  of  the  taxes 
amount  to  sixty  millions  a  year,  and,  now,  let  us  see  whether 
you  pay  none  of  these  taxes ;  or  whether  you  pay  the 
greater  part  of  them  all.  The  whole  of  the  money  collected 
in  taxes  in  one  year  is  now  60,000,000  of  pounds  sterling. 
Of  these  4,000,000/.  are  got  from  Ireland,  2|  from  Scotland, 
and  the  other  53^  from  England.  These  taxes  consist 
of  duties  collected  at  the  Custom-houses  by  the  Excise, 
by  Stamp-Commissioners,  by  Assess  Taxes,  by  the  Post- 
Office,  and  of  some  other  little  things  which,  in  reality, 
amount  to  Tiardly  any  thing.  The  Customs  yield  13,000,000/. 
the  Excise  31 ,000,000/.  the  Stamps  6,000,000/.  the  Assess 
taxes  6,000,000/.  the  Post-Office  2,500,000/.     So  that  we 


1st  August,   1830.  27 

have  here  57,500,000Z.  out  of  the  60,000,000/.  '  The  Cus- 
toms  and  Excise,  alone,  amount  to  44,000,000/.  out  of  the 
60,000,000/.  and  of  the  greater  jSart  of  the  articles,  the 
people  of  the  middle  and  working  classes  pay  five  times  as 
much  as  the  higher  classes  in  proportion  to  their  means; 
because  many  of  the  articles  are  become  necessaries,  and 
the  poor  man,  unless  lie  be  too  poor  to  have  any  enjoyment 
at  all,  wants  as  much  as  the  richest  man  in  the  kingdom* 
Beer,  malt,  cotton  goods,  soap,  candles,  tea,  tobacco  and 
snuff,  sugar,  pepper ;  and,  in  short,  of  all  the  articles  coming 
under  these  heads,  the  people  in  the  middle  and  working 
classes  pay  infinitely  more  than  their  share.     Of  the  stamps, 
too,  they  pay  three  times  their  share.     All  the  stamped 
things  which  are  in  most  common  use  are  stamped  higher 
tiian  those  that  are  in  less  common  use.     For  instance,  if 
a  tradesman  give  a  receipt  in  full  of  all  demands,  in  an  af- 
fair of  only  forty  shillings,  he  must  pay  ten  shillings  for  the 
fitaipp.     If  the  lord,  or  the  squire,  or  the  bishop,  or  the  rich 
mei^chant,  give  a  receipt  in  full  for  fifty  thousand  pounds,  or 
any  greater  sum,  still  he  has  to  pay  only  the  ten  shillings  I 
All  the  stamps  relating  to  the  land  are  very  trifling,  but  all 
those  relating  to  trade,  and  to  be  paid  by  men  in  business, 
are  heavy.    Advertisements,  almost  the  whole  of  which  are 
paid  for  by  servants  and  tradesmen,  amount  to  a  very  large 
sum.     The  stage-coaches,  which  carry  the  people  in  the 
middle  and  lower  ranks  of  life,  pay  nearly  300,000/.  a  year, 
while  all  the  post-horses  pay  less  than  200,000/.     Fire- 
insurances,  ninety-nine    hundredths   of    which    fall  upon 
the  farmers,  pay  about  600,000/.    a  year.     Newspapers 

c  2 


28  ^Two-penny  Trash  ;  '  -     r 

pay  about  400,000Z.  a  year.     The  tradesman,  or  farmer^ 
pays,  therefore,  as  much  on  his  newspaper  as  the  lord  pays 
on  his.     Receipts  pay  about  150,000/.  a  year,  almost  the 
whole  of  which  comes  from  the  middle  and  working  classes. 
Legacies  pay  about  1,000,000Z,  a  year,  almost  the  whole 
of  which  comes  from  the  trading,  and  farming,  and  middle 
class.     The  stamps  on  probates  amount  to  about  700,000/. 
'^a  year,  and  from  this  tax  land  and  houses  are  totally  ex- 
empt.    So  much  for  the  stamps.     Then  comes   the  assess 
taxes.     On  all  the  land  of  the  kingdom  the  whole  tax  is 
only  1,000,000/.  or  thereabouts  ;  but  the  house  tax,  which 
falls  almost  wholly  upon  the  middle  class,  amounts  to  about 
1,250,000/.;     and    the    window-tax  to    little     less    thaa 
2,500,000/. .     So  that  of  the  assess  taxes,  the  middle  class 
pay  infinitely  beyond  their  proportion  ;  for,  if  a  man  keep  a 
horse,  he  is  taxed  for  a  servant,  whether  he  keep  him  or  not, 
and  his  gig,  worth  ten  pounds,  is  taxed  as  high  as  the  lord's 
curricle,   which  is  worth  a   hundred   pounds;    his  horse, 
worth  ten  pounds,  is  taxed  at  the  same  rate  with  regard  to 
the  lords ;  so  with  his  dog,  which  is  necessary  to  the  protec- 
tion of  his  house.     With  regard  to  the  postage  of  letters,  the 
.middle  and  lower  class  pay  the  whole  of  the  money  ;  for  the 
aristocracy,  each  of  whom  can  send  ten  letters  a  day,  and 
leceive  fifteen,  and  send  and  receive,  if  they  please,  several 
letters  under  one  cover,  are  exempted  from  all  payments  on 
this  account, 

40.  Thus,  then,  you  see  how  false  those  men  are,  who 
pretend  that  the  taxes  fallupon  the  rich,  and  uot  upon  the 


I 


1st  August,  1830.  29 

poor.     The  beer  tax  is  indeed  to  be  taken  off;  but  to  be 
taken  off  in  a  manner  to  do  very  little  good  to  the  consumers 
of  the  beer,  while  the  malt  tax  is  kept  on,  and  the  hop  tax 
also :  and  these  taxes  it  is  which  will  still  make  the  beer 
dear  ;  because  there  wdll  be  the  monopoly  in  the  making  of 
the  malt,  and  also  in  the  selling  of  the  beer ;  because  no  man 
is  to  sell  without  a  license,  and  that  license  is  not  to  be 
granted  to  a  poor  man,  who  does  not  already  pay  direct 
taxes.     If  the  tax  were  taken  off  the  malt  and  the  hops,  very 
good  ale  might  be  made  for  a  penny  ci  quart,  Winchester 
measure  ;  because  the  malt  would  not  be  above  three  shil- 
lings a  bushel,  and  perhaps  less,  and  the  hops  not,  on  an 
average,  more  than  sixpence  a  pound,  at  the  most :  twelve 
gallons  to  the  bushel  is  ale  a  great  deal  better  than  that 
which  is  n^w  bought  at  the  public-houses  ;  at  a  penny  a  pot, 
there  would  be  forty -eight  quarts  of  beer  come  from  a  bushel 
of  malt  and  a  pound  of  hops  ;  so  that,  because  the  malt  and 
the  hops  are  taxed,  you  now  pay  sixpence  for  that  which  you 
ought  to  have  for  a  penny.     Let  me  stop  here  to  give  you  a 
piece  of  information,  more  useful  than  all  the  information  that 
Mr.  Brougham  and  his  set  ever  did,  and  ever  will,  com- 
municate to  the  people  of  this  country;  that* is  to  say,  the 
certain  fact  that  people  may  have  good  beer,  if  they  will, 
without  the  use  of  any  malt  at  all,  or  of  any  article,  except 
the  hops,  on  which  the  aristocracy  have  yet  laid  their  grasp. 

41.  When  I  was  in  Suffolk,  at  the  town  of  Eye,  on  the 
17th  and  18th  of  March  last,  a  very  worthy  gentleman  of 
that  town,  Mr.  Clouting,  introduced  me  to  a  gentleman 


N 


30  Two-PENNY  Trash; 

who  had  made  some  beer  from  the  mangel-wurzel  root  This 
gentleman,  who  lives  at  Eye,  and  who  is  a  banker,  or  the 
agent  of  a  bank,  I  forget  which,  in  that  very  nice  town,  gave 
me,  along  with  Mr.  Clouting,  some  of  the  beer  to  taste  1 
and  I  declare  now,  as  I  did  then,  that  it  was  most  excellent 
table  beer,  and  that  I  defy  any  human  being  to  tell  whether 
such  beer  be  made  from  malt  or  not.  I  myself  could  not 
distinguish  any  difference  at  all  between  that  beer^  and  beer 
of  similar  strength  made  of  malt ;  and  I  can  have  no  question 
that  strong  beer,  a  beer  of  all  degrees  of  strength,  can  be 
made  from  mangel-wurzel,  as  well  as  from  malt.  The  exact 
proportions  I  do  not  recollect ;  but,  after  being  informed  of 
the  quantity  of  mangel-wurzel  used,  and  of  the  process,  I 
remember  that  my  calculation  was,  that  very  good  table  beer 
can  be  made  for  a  penny  a  pot. 

42.  I  will  write,  or,  rather,  I  now  hereby  write  to  Mr. 
Clouting,  requesting  him  to  have  the  goodness  to  furnish 
me  with  the  particulars  with  regard  to  this  brewing.     I  know 
myself  how  much  mangel-wurzel  can  be  grown  upon  any 
given  quantity  of  land ;  I  know,  also,  and  well  know,  how  to 
cultivate  the  plant ;  how  to  gather  in  the  crop,  and  how  to 
preserve  the  plants,  either  in-doors  or  out-of-doors,  so  that 
they  shall  be  in  a  state  of  perfect  preservation  from  the  month 
of  November  even  until  the  month  of  July,  if  not  until  Sep- 
tember.    Late  in  September,  early-planted  mangel-wurzel 
brings  a  fresh  crop.    X)f  all  these  matters  I  Will  speak  when 
I  get  the  particulars  from  Mr.  Clouting,  from  whom  I  wish 
to  know  these   particulars:   1.    The  quantity  of  mangel- 


1st  August,  1830.  «         31 

wurzel  made  use  of  in  making  the  beer  which  I  tasted  ; 

2.  The  quantity  of  hops  made  use  of  (I  remembering  that 
the  quantity  was  twice  as  great  as  it  ought  to  have  been)  ; 

3.  The  quantity  of  beer  made,  meaning  that  beer  which  I 
tasted ;  4.  The  mode  of  preparing  the  roots  for  the  process, 
whether  by  slicing,  chopping,  or  otherwise  ;  the  process  of 
boiling,  mashing,  and  so  forth ;  the  length  of  the  time  of 
boiling,  and  so  forth ;  5.  The  state  of  heat  in  which  the 
yeast  was  put  in  the  wort ;  6.  Whether  there  was  yeast 
which  rose  upon  the  head  of  the  wort,  as  in  the  case  of 
malt;  7.  Whether  the  yeast  (if  any)  which  rose  upon  the 
head  of  the  wort,  were,  in  its  appearance  and  qualities,  like 
that  which  proceeds  from  malt ;  8.  What  length  of  time  the 
beer  kept  good ;  9.  Whether  it  turned  sour  or  flat  more 
speedily  than  beer  made  of  malt.  When  I  have  all  these 
particulars,  which,  I  am  sure,  my  worthy  friend,  Mr, 
Clouting,  will  give  me  in  the  most  accurate  manner,  I  will 
publish  them,  my  friends,  for  your  information,  being  per-» 
fectly  conviQced  that  this  is  a  discovery  of  ten  thousand 
times  the  value  of  the  steam-engine  and  the  power-loom. 

43.  I  am  quite  satisfied,  as  I  told  the  gentlemen  of  Eye, 
that  if  those  who  ffll  the  seats  would  let  us  use  our  barley 
without  making  us  pay  nearly  twice  the  original  cost  of 
.barley  before  we  turn  it  into  beer,  nothing,  all  things  taken 
into  view,  would  be  so  cheap  as  the  barley  in  the  making 
of  beer ;  but,  I  am  also  quite  satisfied,  that,  loaded  with 
tax  and  monopoly  as  the  barley  now  is,  a  gallon  of  beer^ 


7»- 


32  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

made  from  mangel-wurzel,  will  not  cost  half  so    much  as  a 
g^on  of  beer,  of  the  strength,  made  from  the  barley. 

44.  This,  therefore,  is  a  very  important  matter.  Mangel- 
wurzel  will  grow  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom,  and  in  all 
sorts  of  land.  With  good  cultivation  it  will  yield  Jifty  tons 
to  the  acre ;  and  it  must  be  a  bad  crop  to  be  less  than 
twenty  tons  ^  it  is  a  root  easily  cultivated,  whether  on  the 
spot  where  it  is  sowed,  or  by  transplantation  (I  am  raising 
some  in  both  ways  this  year)  ;  a  single  rpod  of  ground  might 
be  made  to  produce  half  a  ton  weight  of  the  roots;  the  seed 
is  very  cheap  proportioned  to  the  extent  of  land  which  it 
will  sow  or  plant ;  it  is  a  root  easily  taken  from  the  ground, 
easily  preserved,  and  that  too  without  the  cover  of  a 
house ;  I  having  preserved  hundreds  of  tons  out  in  the  fields 
all  the  winter.  I  think  I  saw  more  than  a  hundred  tons, 
in  one  immense  heap,  in  Norfolk,  on  the  15th  of  March' 
last,  merely  covered  over  with  straw  thrown  upon  it,  the 
far  greater  part  of  it  as  sound  as  w^hen  it  came  from  the 
field,  and  a  score  of  oxen  fatting  upon  it.  In  Norfolk  and 
Suffolk,  those  famous  counties  for  tillage,  where  this  plant 
is  now  grown  in  such  prodigious  quantities,  and  where  the 
farmers  are  so  clever,  so  intelligent,  so  enterprising,  so  neat 
and  so  judicious  in  the  management  of  all  their  affairs,  I 
have  no  doubt,  that  a  few  years  would,  were  this  system  of 
taxing  to  continue,  see  the  malt- tax,  in  effect,  very  quietly 
repealed,  as  far,  at  any  rate,  as  the  country  people  are  con- 
cerned.     Such  a  thing  cannot  be  confined  to  a  corner  ;  and 


1st  August,  1830.  •  33 

{torn  Suffolk,    that   pattern   county,   the  discovery  would 
spread  all  over  the  kingdom. 

45.  It  is  pretty  generally  known  that  it  was  from  this 
root  that  the  French  made,  and  some  of  them  still  make, 
sugar,  I  have  tasted  the  sugar  many  times,  and  could  not 
have  distinguished  it  by  any  means  from  the  moist  sugar 
ivhich  we  get  from  the  West  Indies.  It  is  well  known, 
also,  that  beer  can  be  made  from  Wast  India  sugar,  and 
that  the  offal  of  the  sugar  which  we  call  treacle,  and  the 
Yankees  call  molasses;  and  that  it  is  so  made;  and  that 
the  great  brewers  really  put  this  offal  sometimes  into  their 
porter,  which  is,  perhaps  one  cause  _of  the  blackness  of  that 
horrible  stuffy  but,  to  make  beer  from  West  India  sugar, 
even  supposing  there  to  be  no  tax  at  all  upon  that  sugar, 
would  not  be  economy  so  good  as  to  make  it  from  barley,  if 
the  barley  were  untaxed.  The  increased  demand  for  the 
sugar  would  cause  its  price  to  rise  ;  but,  by  no  possibility 
could  it  bo  brought  into  England  under  sixteen  or  seven- 
teen shillings  the  hundred  weight  for  moist  sugar.  Now, 
a  bushel  of  good  malt  will  make  twelve  gallons  of  better 
beer  than  thirty  pounds  of  sugar  will.  The  thirty  pounds 
of  sugar  at  seventeen  shillings  the  hundred  weight  would 
cost  about  five  shillings  ;  and  the  bushel  of  malt  will  not, 
on  an  average  of  years,  in  the  present  money,  cost  more 
than  two  and  sixpence,  if  untaxed ;  because  the  increase 
upon  the  malting  pays  for  the  process  ;  and  because  J,  who 

have  some  beautiful  fields  of  barley  this  year;  shall  think 

c  5 


34  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

myself  a  lucky  fellow,  if  able  to  sell  the  whole  of  it  for  half* 
a-crowD  a  bushel, 

46.  It  may  be  asked,  why,  if  mangel-wurzel  will  yield 
sugar,  we  do  not  make  sugar  from  it  in  England  ?  That  is 
a  very  different  matter.  The  expense  of  this  process  must 
be  great  in  proportion  to  the  value  of  the  result ;  otherwise, 
there  would  long  ago  have  been  an  end  to  importing  sugar 
from  the  hot  climates.  The  extracting  of  the  saccharine 
matter  from  so  bulky  a  substance,  must  necessarily  be  very 
expensive ;  but,  if  beer  can  be  made  from  the  root  itself, 
and  if  the  average  crop  of  the  root  would  weigh  SE- 
VENTY TIMES  as  much  as  the  average  crop  of  barley  on 
an  acre  of  land,  the  difference  in  the  weight  is  so  great 
as  to  render  it  utterly  impossible  that  the  mangel-wurzel 
should  not  be  the  cheapest  article  while  there  is  any  tax 
upon  the  barley  :  and  I  should  not  be  afraid  to  lay  a  wager, 
that,  by  this  time  twelvemonth,  a  quarter  part  of  the  malt 
tax,  that  most  cruel  of  all  taxes,  will  have  been  repealed 
in  this  quiet  manner  in  the  counties  of  Norfolk  and  Suf- 
folk; and  my  readers  may  be  well  assured,  that  nothing  in 
my  power  shall  be  left  undone  to  aid  the  people  of  those 
counties  in  this  excellent  undertaking. 

47.  Returning,  now,  to  my  proposition,  that  it  is  the 
weight  of  the  taxes  that  makes  the  people  poor ;  that  is 
sinHing  tradesmen  and  farmers  into  hopeless  insolvency,  and 
that  has  brought  the  working  classes  do<vn  to  the  verge  of 


•1st  August,  1830.  35 

starvalion',  let  me  ask  the  impudent  tax- eaters,  who  deny 
that  the  taxes  are  the  cause  of  the  ruin  and  misery,  whether 
the  labouring  man  would  not  be  better  off  than  he  now  is, 
if  he  could  make  his  ale  for  a  penny  a  pot ;  if  he  could  have 
his  soap,  and  candles,  and  tobacco^  and  sugar,  and  tea,  for 
one  half  of  their  present  price,  and  if  the  four-pound, 
loaf  cost  him  fourpence  instead  of  tenpence ;  and  if  his  em- 
ployer (which  would  be  the  case)  were  able  to  pay  him 
wages  as  high  as  those  he  now  receives  ;  because  the  em- 
ployer.  relieved  from  the  burden  of  the  rateSy  relieved  from 
the  stamp  and  assessed  taxes  ;  relieved,  also,  from  the  cus- 
toms and  excise,  and  the  monstrous  tax  upon  letters  ;  re- 
lieved from  four-fifths  of  all  these,  would  be  able  to  pay  the 
same  wages,  and  have  twice  the  clear  profits  that  he  now 
has. 

48 ♦  And  why  is  not  this  the  case  P  This  is  the  question 
for  you  to  answer.  The  reason  is,  that  the  money  is  taken 
from  us  without  our  assent.  It  is  taken  from  us  by  Acts^ 
of  the  Parliament  5  and  that  Parliament  have  now  before 
them  a  petition  which  was  presented  by  Earl  Grey 
(then  Mr.  Grey)  in  the  year  1793,  in  which  that  very 
lord  himself  asserted,  that  he  was  ready  to  prove  at  the  bar, 
that  a  decided  majority  of  the  vjhole  house  was  returned 
by  a  hundred  and  fifty-four  persons,  some  of  them  peers  and 
some  of  them  great  commoners,  including  about  a  dozen 
members  returned  by  the  Treasury  itself.  It  is  very  clear 
that  those  who  return  a  decided  majority  of  an  assembly 
whose  decisions  are  taken  by  vote,  do,  in  fact,  return  the 


36 V  Two-penny  Trash; 

whole  assembly,  and  cause  every-thing  to  be  decided 
according  to  their  own  pleasure.  Sir  James  Graham 
has  lately  showed  us,  that  113  of  the  aristocracy,  who* 
are  privy  councillors,  receive,  exclusive  of  their  families, 
650fi00L  a  year,  that  is  to  say,  about  a  ninetieth  part  of 
the  whole  of  the  taxes  ;  a  sum  equal  in  amount  to  four 
days'  taxes  for  the  whole  country  ;  a  sum  equal  to  the 
amount  of  a  year's  wages  of  thirty  thousand  married! 
labouring  men  in  Wiltshire;  and,  reckoning  five  persons 
to  every  labouring  man's  family,  including  the  husband 
and  wife,  these  hundred  and  thirteen  men  receive,  every 
year,  as  much  as  goes  to  the  maintenance  of  one]  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  of  the  working  class  of  the  people  of 
England.  Now,  it  is  useless  to  express  one's  indignation 
at  this ;  to  cry,  to  repine,  to  whine,  are  totally  useless.  But 
to  know  the  fact,  is  not  totally  useless. 

49.  Ten  such  sheets  of  paper  as  this  would  not  contain  a 
bare  list  of  the  sums  which  the  aristocracy,  their  relations- 
and  dependents,  receive  out  of  the  taxes.  Indeed,  a  very 
little  would  be  necessary  to  carry  on  the  afifairs  of  this 
country,  if  it  were  not  for  the  sums  which  they  have  re- 
ceived, and  which  they  do  now  receive.  We  have  a  debt, 
which  takes,  annually,  about  half  of  the  whole  of  the  taxes. 
Almost  the  whole  of  the  debt  has  been  contracted  within  the. 
last  sixty  years  ;  and  if  I  had  the  power  to  call  for  the  docu- 
ments that  I  could  name,  and  had  a  couple  of  expert  clerks 
to  assist  me  to  make  out  the  account,  I  should  not  be  at  all 
afraid  to  pledge  myself  to  prove  that  a  sum,  equal  in  amount 


1st  August,  1830.  37 

to  the  whole  of  the  debt,  has,  in  the  course  of  that  sixty 
years,  been  paid,  out  of  the  taxes,  to  the  aristocracy,  their 
relations  and  dependents.  The  total  amount  of  the  debt 
is  800,000,000/. ;  that  is  to  say,  14,000,000/.  a  year  for  tl^ 
60  years ;  and  my  opinion  is,  that  taking  one  year  with  the 
other,  this  amount  has  been  received  by  this  body  of  per- 
sons ;  for,  only  look  at  the  amount  of  the  cost  of  the  army 
and  the  navy  in  this  time  of  perfect  peace,  look  at  the  in- 
numerable places  and  pensions  and  sinecures ;  think  of  the 
immense  sums  expended  during  the  war,  in  one  year  nearly 
100,000,000/.  exclusive  of  the  interest  of  the  debt;  look  at 
the  numerous  instances  in  which  men  notoriously  not  worth 
a  i^hilling,  have  suddenly  risen  up  into  fortunes  equal  to 
principalities.  It  is  impossible  that,  in  such  a  state  of 
things,  the-people  should  be  otherwise  than  miserable^ 

50.  Mr.  HusKissoN,  in  a  speech  which  he  has  recently 
made  and  published,  tells  us  that  "  the  present  generation 
must  be  contented  to  submit  to  this  state  of  things!'^ 
which  is,  I  think,  the  most  impudent  thing  ever  uttered, 
even  by  an  English  tax-eater.  There  is,  indeed,  the  DEBT, 
commonly  called  national;  and  to  deprive  the  fund-holders 
of  their  interest  would  certainly  be  a  very  unjust  thing ; 
but  if  a  hundred  and  fifty-four  mei^  have  always  been  re- 
turning a  majority  of  the  members  to  the  Commons'  house, 
it  is,  in  fact,  that  hundred  and  fifty -four  men  who  have 
iorrowed  the  money.  Would  there,  therefore,  be  any  very 
great  ground  for  astonishment,  if,  at  last,  they  were^called 
^pon  to  pay  the  money }     At  any  rate^  if  this  were  to  be  tho 


38  Two-penny  TitASH: 

case,  they  would  find,  that  the  returning  of  majorities  was 
BO  such  profitable  afifair,  after  all !    Let  us  take,  for  instance, 
the  case  of  one  of  Lord  Grey's  hundred  and  fifty- four  men. 
The  number  of  seats  is  658 ;  the  amount  of  the  debt,  or 
sum  to  be  paid,  800,000,000/.    Now,  suppose  one  of  Lord 
Grey's  men  to  have  always  put  in  two;  then  it  would  be  a 
mere  rule-of -three  question;  thus, if  658  give  800,000,000?. 
what  will  two  give  ?     The  answer  would  be,  2, 400, 000 Z,  or 
thereabouts :  so  that,  if  this  Lord  Grey's  man  had  an  estate 
worth  eighty  thousand  a  year,  that  estate,  at  thirty-Jive 
years  purchase,  would  pay  off  his  share  of  the  debt,  and 
still  leave  him  400^000Z.  clear  of  all  incumbrances !     Now, 
I  am  not  recommending  a  mode  of  settling  like  this ;  but, 
a  t\iQ  parties  thought  well  of  it,  no  modest  or  reasonable 
person  would  surely  attempt  to  interfere,  to  prevent  an  ar- 
rangement so  easily  made,  and  so  manifestly  clear  of  all 
grounds  for  cavil  and  dispute. 

5L  I  do  not  say,  nor  pretend  to  believe,  that  if  I  were  a 
borrowing  party,  or  the  heir  of  a  borrowing  party,  that  I 
should  like  such  a  mode  of  settlement ;  but,  under  certain 
circumstances,  and,  indeed,  under  many  circumstances, 
during  a  man's  life,  men  submit  to  that  which  they  by  no 
means  like;  and  are  not  unfrequently  very  sorry  for  not 
having  submitted  sooner.  How  gladly,  in  the  year  1794, 
would  the  French  aristocracy  have  submitted  to  that,  or 
rather  to  an  arrangement  like  that,  which  I  have  here  men- 
tioned ;  but  the  thing  is  not  to  be  viewed  in  this  light 
neither ;  for,  eight  hundred  millions  of  the  present  money 


•    Ut  August,  1830.  39 

are  not  due  to  the  fundholders :  the  value  of  the  money  has 
been  changed :  it  has  been  doubled  in  the  amount  of  one 
half;  and,  therefore,  if  the  debt  were  paid  off,  the  creditors 
would  be  entitled,  in  fact,  to  no  more  than  four  hundred 
millions  of  money.     However,  if  the  parties  choose  to  take 
the  matter  to  themselves,  it  would  be  very  impertinent  on 
the  part  of  us,  the  people,  to  attempt  to  interfere  in  order  to 
prevent  the  settlement ;  and,  I  really  do  believe,  that  a  re* 
formed  parliament  would  never  attempt  to  interfere  in  the 
matter  unless  called  upon  by  one  or  the  other  of  the  parties 
to  do  it,     A  reformed  parliament  will  be  an  entirely  new 
body,  having  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  old  scores,  unless 
called  upon  by  one  of  the  fiarties,  or  by  both,  to  form  regu- 
lations for  the  adjustment,  and  for  compelling  the  parties  to 
submit  to  the  decision  of  competent  judges,  of  the  matter. 
The  worst  of  it  is,  that  in  cases  of  this  sort,  the  settlement 
is  generally  put  off  so  long,  that,  at  last,  the  parties  are 
unable  to  come  to  any  settlement  at  all.     This  was  the 
case  in  France.     Those  who  had  pocketed  the  amount  of 
the  loans,  which  formed  the  debts  of  the  state,  reduced 
the   country  to  a  condition  in  which  it   was    unable   to 
pay  those  debts.     Endless  schemes  of  funding  were  resorted 
to  ;  but  never  any  scheme  for  refunding.     The  people  were 
too  poor    to   pay;    the    nobility    and    loan-mongers   and 
farmers  of  taxes,  who  were  able  to  pay,  would  not  pay; 
at  last,  the  people,  no  longer  able  to  endure  the  load  of 
taxation,  rose  against    the    imposers    of   that  load;    the 
nobles  lost  their  estates  and  their  titles,  the  clergy  lost  their 
tithes  and  their  lunds ;  the  fundholders,  their  stock  and  its 


40  Two-penny  Trash; 

interest ;  and  the  royal  family,  the  throne ;  all  of  which 
arose,  not  for  want,  at  last,  of  a  disposition  to  make  a  just 
settlement ;  but  for  want  of  having  made  that  settlement 
i7i  time.  The  states-general  were  called  together ;  and  if 
they  had  been  called  together  teji  years  earlier,  France 
might  have  remained  a  monarchy  for  ages  yet  to  come.  In 
many  instances,  "  Better  late  than  never"  is  a  true  saying; 
but,  with  regard  to  the  concessions  of  riders  to  their  people, 
the  true  maxim  is,  ^*  Better  never  than  late,^*  That  this 
maxim  may  not  have  its  truth  verified  in  -the  conduct  and 
history  of  our  rulers,  is  the  anxious  prayer  of  your  faithful 
f:iend, 

^  Wm.  COBBETT. 


STATE  OF  THINGS  IN  FRANCE. 

52.  Nothing  can,  at  this  time,  be  so  useful  to  you  as  a 
clear  understanding  with  regard  to  that  which  is  now  passing 
in.  France,  and  that  which  has  recently  passed.  Mr. 
Brougham,  in  his  **  books  of  useful  knowledge,^*  will 
tell  you  not  one  single  word  about  this  matter.  You  re- 
member that,  in  the  year  1814,  the  family  of  Bourbon, 
which  had  been,  for  more  than  twenty  years,  expelled  from 
France,  returned  thither,  by  the  force  of  English  armies 
and  fleets,  and  armies  subsidized  by  England.  Such  of  you 
as  are  now  young,  should  be  told,  that  the  Bourbons  took 
back  with  them,  chiefly  from  this  country,  the  old  nobility 
of  Fiance  who  had  been  driven  out^  and  had  their  titles 


1st  August,  1830.  41 

taken  from  them  ;  that  they  restored  th^se  nobility  to  their 
former  rank  and  titles ;  that  the  foreign  armies,  which  had 
replaced  the  Bourbons,  stripped  Paris  of  the  ornaments  and 
trophies  won  during  the  war  by  the  French ;  that  they 
stripped  France  of  her  frontier  towns,  and  imposed  a  heavy 
tribute  on  her  people ;  that  the  Bourbons,  in  returning  to 
the  throne,  agreed  to  a  constitution,  or  charter,  according 
to  which  there  was  to  be  a  house  of  peers,  and  a  house  of 
deputies  elected  by  the  people,  or,  rather,  a  select  portion 
of  the  people  in  every  district,  who  were  to  vote  by  ballot. 

53.  Such  was  the  settlement,  or  compact,  made  between 
the  Bourbons  and  the  people  of  France.  You  should  be 
further  informed,  that,  about  six  or  seven  months  ago,  the 
Prench  King  made  a  change  in  his  ministry,  and  put  at  the 
head  of  it  a  Prince  Polignac,  who  had  long  been  in 
this  country y  who  was  very  much  disliked  by  the  French 
people,  and  whose  promotion  they,  whether  falsely  or  truly, 
ascribed  to  the  influence  of  the  English  government ;  and 
particularly  of  the  Duke  of  Waterloo,  whom  they  appear 
to  hate ;  that  his  colleagues  of  the  cabinet  were  men  some- 
what of  the  same  description  ;  that  these  men  appear  to  have 
been  hated  throughout  the  whole  of  France ;  that,  about  six 
months  ago,  the  King  called  together  the  two  houses  of  the 
parliament,  and  delivered  to  them  a  speech;  that,  in  an- 
swer to  this  speech,  the  house,  or  Chamber  of  Deputies,  elected 
by  the  people,  as  good  as  told  him,  that  they  would  vote  him 
no  money  as  long  as  he  listened  to  the  councils  of  these 
niinisterSfthditilieKin^ytheTeu^onf  dissolved  the  parlia7nentf 


42  Two-penny  Thash  ; 

and  ordered  a  new  election,  thinking  thereby  to  get  a  chamber 
of  depirties  more  subservient  to  his  will ;  that  the  King  and 
his  Ministers  appear  to  have  done  every-thing  possible  in  order 
to  secure  a  majority  in  the  new  Chamber  of  Deputies  ;  that, 
though  France  contains  about  thirty-two  millions  ofpeO" 
pie,  and,  of  course,  about  eight  millions  of  m^n  oifull  age, 
only,  eighty  thousand,  out  of  the  eight  millions,  have  been 
permitted  to  vote ;  the  right  of  voting  being  confined  to  per- 
sons of  considerable  property  in  house  and  land ;  that,  not- 
withstanding these  circumstances,  the  elections,  which?  -are 
just  now  over,  have  returned  a  Chamber  of  Deputies,  having 
in  it  a  greater  majority  against  the  Ministers  than  the 
last  Chamber  had  ;  that  the  King,  aware  of  this  fact,  has 
broken  his  compact  with  the  people;  has  broken  the  con- 
stitution, or  charter ;  has  drawn  the  sword,  and,  according 
to  the  old  saying,  ^*  thrown  away  the  scabbard.^* 

54.  He  has  now  issued,  by  his  own  authority,  these 
edicts,  or  ordinances,  by  the  first  of  which  he  has  ordered 
all  liberty  of  the  press  to  be  totally  suspended,  so  that  no 
man  can  write  or  publish  any-thing  which  has  not  first  been 
read  and  approved  of  by  some  officer  appointed  by  him ;  by 
the  second,  he  h^&dissolved  the  new  Chamber  ofDepvrtieSy 
even  before  they  be  called  together ;  by  the  third,  he  has 
so  altered  the  law  of  election,  as  to  make  the  choosing  of 
Deputies  to  be  solely  the  work  of  himself  or  his  Ministers  ; 
and  thus  he  stands,  surrounded  by  these  Ministers,  and  by 
their  and  his  dependents,  and  having  the  almost  unani^ 
mous  voice  of  his  people  against  him  and  his  measures. 


1st  August,  1830.  43 

What  has  happened  since  this  was  done,  I  shall  hardly  be 
able  to  learn  before  this  paper  go  to  the  press  ;  but,  without 
knowing  any- thing  about  that,  every  one  must  see  that  this 
is  downright  despotism.  Here  is  a  House  of  Representa«» 
tives  dissolved  Jven  before  they  meet.  To  talk  of  law^  and 
jto  talk  of  r^t^fntative  government^  in  France,  is,  there- 
fore, a  mon^r^iw  mockery  and  insult,  even  to  imbecility. 

» 

55.  One  eajQ|ft€^^ tell  exactly  when,  or  how,  this  matter 
will  end  ;  but  of  same  cpnsequences  we  may  be  sure  ;  and, 
Amongst  these  are,  1.  That  the  Bourbons  will  now  be  de- 
tested and  abhorred  by  every  Frenchman  not  in  their  pay  : 
2.  That,  if  the  King  remain  in  France,  he  must  remain  by 
sheer  military  force  ;  that  if  that  force  fail  him,  he  must 
flee  for  his  life ;  that,  at  least,  all  will  be  agitation  and 

confusion   throughout  that    immense   kingdom ;    that  the 

I 
French  Funds  will  become  of  as  little  value  as  Spanish  or 

Colombian  Bonds ;  and,  at  the  very  least,  taxes,  if  col** 

iected  at  all,  must  be  collected  stvord  in  hand. 

56.  People  blame  the  King  for  his  rashness ;  but  such 
people  do  not  consider  what  his  real  situation  was.  It 
would  be,  at  the  first  brush,  rash  to  do  many  things,  which 
lose  the  character  of  rashness  when  we  take  all  the  cir* 
€umstances  into  view.  If  some  one  were  to  tell  me,  that 
a  friend  of  nune  had  jumped  from  his  chamber-window  into 
the  street,  "  Oh,  how  rash  !  He  must  be  mad  !  "  I  should 
exclaim ;  but  if,  in  addition,  I  were  told  that  my  friend's 
house  was  on  Jire,  and  that  the  flames  were  just  rushing 


44  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

into  his  chamber,  so  far  from  calling  his  jump  rash,  I  should 
think  it  wise.    This  was  much  about  the  case  with  the  King 
of  France.     He  was  sure  of  being  burnt  if  he  did  not  take 
the  jump,    and  therefore  he  took  it.     *'  Yield  ;  "    people 
say,  particularly  stupid  fund-people,  that  he  should  have 
yielded  ;  that  is  to  say,  remain  to  be  burnt.     For  the  truth 
is  this ;  the  French  people  detest  the  Bourbons,  whom  they 
regard  as  the  cause  of  their  degradation  in  1814  and  1815; 
whom  they  regard  as  the  allies  of  their  enemies  ;  whom  they 
regard  as  the  cause  of  the  tribute  and  of  the  national  debt  ; 
whom  they  regard  as  the  cause  of  all  the  heavy  taxes  which 
they  have  to  pay,  and  of  which  they  w^ould  have  hardly  any 
to  pay,  were  it  not  for  the  Bourbons^  and  for  those  who  are 
paid  to  uphold  the  Royal  Government.     The  French  people 
want,  and  openly  say  they  want,  to  get  rid  of  the  Royal 
Government,  and  to  have  a  Republic.     This  is  now  so 
clear,  that  no  one  can  dispute  it.     They  have  proved  this  so 
plainly,  that,  for  the  king  to  have  attempted  to  save  himself 
by  concessions  would  have  been  madness  indeed  !     He  had 
simply   this   choice:    1.    To   become    **  Citizen   Charles 
Capet,*'  and  work  for  his  bread  ;  2.  To  get  off  out  of  ^he 
kingdom  ;  or,  3.  To  try  to  save  himself  by  open  war  with 
the  people.     He  has  chosen  the  latter,  which,  even  if  he 
fail,  may  afford  him  the  chance  of  getting  off,  after  all. 
He  may,  to  be  sure,  not  be  able  to  get  off;  but,  the  very 
worst   that   can   befall  him   is  hardly   so  bad  as  either 
**  Citizen  Charles/'  or  another  trip  to  England ! 

57.  Besides,  it  is  not  so  certain  that  England  (or  any  other 


1st  August,  1830.  45 

•  country)  would  dare  receive  him,  unless  prepared  for  war 
with  France!  Will  Spain,  Portugal,  the  Dutchman,  or 
England,  relish  a  war  with  the  people  of  France  ?  Will 
America  be  neutral  this  time,  if  we  attack  the  French 
people  ?  The  French  know  our  situation  as  well  as  we  do  ; 
the  Americans  know  it :  all  the  world,  except  the  Bourbons, 
know  it.  Oh,  no  !  A  Government  contracts  a  debt  of 
800,000,000/.  but  once.  -Paul  Methuen  will  not  a^am 
brag  that  *'  England  has  the  honour  to  be  the  restorer  of 
legitimacy  ihioughovit  Europe;"  Bankes  will  not  again 
call  for  taking  the  pictures  and  statues  from  '^  the  twicc^ 
conquered  France;"  the  base  Courier  will  not  again 
say,  "  The  play  is  over,  ive  may  go  to  supper ;  "  the  baser 
Old  Times  will  not  again  say,  "  Let  us  depart  in  peace,  for 
'  our  eyes  have  seen  the  salvation,"  Oh,  no  !  the  THING, 
let  what  may  happen,  the  THING  must  be  quiet,  or  blow 
up  the  Funding  System ;  for  who  is  there  that  is  beast 
Ci^ough^  under  circumstances  pointing  to  war,  that  will  fail 
to  see,  that  NOTHING  WILL  BE  SAFE  BUT  GOLD  ! 

5S.  No  ;  our  THING  cannot  stir,  and  the  French  people 
know  that  well.  They  know  that  it  was  the  THING,  and 
that  alone,  that  made  them  submit  to  the  Bourbons  ;  and 
they  now  know  that  they  cannot  make  even  an  attempt  to  do 
this  again.  It  may,  and  perhaps  will,  by  an  alien  act,  or 
by  some  other  means,  endeavour  to  do  some  little  matter ; 
but,  if  th^  king  be  defeated  (and  he  will  be  m  the  end)y 
our  THING  will  be  civil;  it  will  not  again  drive  the 
French  Ambassador  out  of  England  I  In  short,  Charles  must 


46  Two-penny  Trash; 

be  king  by  the  French  sword  alone ;  or,  he  must  be  '*  Citizen 
Capet/'  There  will  not  again  be  a  Duke  of  Brunswick 
and  his  army  to  enter  France.  In  short,  our  THING  can 
give  720  subsidies,  and  Charles  must  do  all  for  himself. 

59.  But  what  ought  our  Government  to  do,  tobepre- 
pared  for  a  Republic  in  France  ?  Why,  without  losing 
an  hour  make  a  Radical  Reform  of  the  House  of  Com^ 
mons.  We  are  come  back  exactly  to  the  old  point.  The 
people  here,  when  the  French  Revolution  broke  out,  would 
have  been  content  with  reform;  so  they  would  now:  the 
wise  course,  then,  is,  to  give  them  the  reform,  and  leave  the 
French  to  settle  their  oiun  affairs  in  their  own  manner. 
The  struggle  in  France  may  be  long  and  bloody:  it  must 
end  in  a  Republic,  or  in  a  savage  despotism  :  the  latter, 
for  any  length  of  duration,  is  impossible  :  and,  therefore, 
again  and  again,  I  say  reform,  reform,  as  the  sure,  and, 
perhaps,  the  only,  means  of  preserving  the  institutions  and 
the  tranquillity,  and  restoring  the  happiness  of  England. 


HISTORY  OF  ExNGLAND.      ^* 

On  the  1st  of  September  I  shall  publish  No.  I.  of  The 
History  of  the  Life  and  Reign  of  George  IV.  When 
that  is  done,  I  shall  go  back  to  the  earliest  times,  and  pub- 
lish, in  similar  Numbers,  on  the  1st  of  every  month,  a 
Complete  History  of  England.    A  true  one^  not  a 


1st  August,  1830. 


47 


romance.  The  History  of  George  IV.  will  be  the  end^ 
of  course,  unless  I  should  outlive  another  King.  I  begin 
with  this  last  reign,  because  we  want  it,  and  particularly 
the  history  of  our  poor,  unfortunate  and  excellent  friend, 
Queen  Caroline,  who,  by  her  known  hatred  of  corrup- 
tion, gave  the  borough  villains  a  better  blow  than  they  had 
had  for  many,  many  years.  They  have,  in  fact,  never  been 
''  their  own  men ''  since.  These  incomparable  villains  (for 
what  is  equal  to  their  villany)  shall  have  their  due,  their 
full  due,  in  my  history,  which  shall  show  how  they  got  their 
possessions ;  and  enable  the  nation  to  judge  of  the  right  that 
they  have  to  keep  them.  Our  histories  are  romances,  writ- 
ten by  pensioned  and  bribed  slaves.  It  is  high  time  that 
the  people  knew  the  truth ;  high  time  that  they  saw  the 
degradation  into  which  they  have  fallen,  and  the  causes  of 
it.  This  task  was  reserved  for  me  ;  and,  God  giving  me 
life  and  health,  I  will  perform  it.  The  Numbers  will  come 
out  monthly y  price  Gg?.,  as  low  as  I  can  sell  it,  with  any 
thing  like  compensation  to  myself ;  and  I  do  this,  because  I 
wish  people  in  even  low  circumstances  to  read  iU 


48 

List  of  Mr.  Cobbett's  Books. 

JEnglisK  Grammar,  Price  3s. 
French  Grammar,  Price  5s. 
Cottage  Economy.     Price  2s.  6<f . 

Mr.   Cobbetfs  Rural  Rides.      One  thick  vol.    12mo. 
Price  5s. 

The  Woodlands.     Price  14s. 

The  English  Gardener.     Price  6s. 

Year*s  Residence  in  America.     Price  5s» 

Mr,  Cobhetfs  Sermons.     Price  3s.  6d. 

The  Poor  Mans  Friend.    Price  8c?. 

Paper  Against  Gold.  .  Price  5s. 

History  of  the  Protestant  Reformation,      Two  vols. 
Royal  8vo.  fine  paper.     Price  10s. 

Roman  History,  in  French  and  English,     Price  13s. 

American  Slave  Trade.    Price  2s. 

Tulles  Husbandry.     One  vol.  8vo.  Price  15s. 

Emigrant's  Guide.     One  vol.  12mo.     Price  2s.  6d. 

A  Treatise  on  CobbetVs  Corn,     One  vol.  12mo.     Price 
5s.  Old. 

Advice  to  Young  Men,     One  vol.  12mo.     Price  5s. 
An  Italian  Grammar.     By  James  P.  Cobbett.    12mo. 
Price  6s. 

A  Sketch  of  the  Life  of  General  Lafayette,    Price  Is. 
Usury  Laws,  or  Lending  on  Interest,     Price  2s.  6cZ. 

History  of  the  Regency  and  Reign  of  George  IV.,  in 

"Numbers,  at  6d.  eavh,  l^mo.    Three  Numbers  published. 

Mr,  John  Cobbetfs  Letters  from  France,    Price  4s.  6c?. 

Mr.  James  Cobbett' s  Ride  of  Eight  Hundred  Miles  in 
France.     Third  Edition.     Price  4s.  6d,  ' 

Cobbetfs  Translation  of  Martens  s  Law  of  Nations, 
Fourth  Edition.  "  Price  17s. 

Mr.  Wm,  Cobbetfs  Law  of  Turnpikes.    Price  3s.  Qd,, 


Wills,  Jowett,  and  Mills,  Bolt  Court,  Fleet  SUeet. 


No.  III. 


COBBETT'S 


TWO-PENNY    TRASH 


For  the  Month  of  September,  1830. 


TO   THE 

WORKING  PEOPLE  OF  ENGLAND  AND 

SCOTLAND. 

Kensington^  j^ugust  26,  1830. 
My  Friends, 

60.  Never  since  the  world  existed  was  there,  to  man  in 
civil  life,  a  time  more  important  and  critical  than  this ;  and 
never  was  it  so  manifest,  that  the  condition  of  mankind  de- 
pends wholly  on  their  own  conduct,  and  especially  on  that  of 
the  working  people.  It  is,  therefore,  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance that  you  be  perfectly  well  informed  of  the  causes 
which  have  produced  the  recent  glorious  event  at  Paris. 
The  great  deed  was  there  performed  by  the  working  people  ; 
and  by  the  working  people  here,  must  finally  be  produced 
those  salutary  effects  which  every  good  man  wishes  to  see 
produced.  There  are  some  men  who  happen  to  be  so  fortu- 
nate as  to  be  able  to  keep  their  bones  from  labour,  who 
consider  the  working  people  merely  as  being  made  to  toil  for 
others.  Others,  again,  w^ho  have  their  motives,  doubtless, 
choose  to  assert  that  the  working  people  of  England  are 

London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street ; 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers, 


50  Two-penny  Trash; 

poor  things  compared  with  those  in  France.  My  friends^ 
your  conduct,  when  you  have  had  a  fair  opportunity,  has 
always  given  the  lie  to  this  assertion ;  and,  I  am  sure,  it  will 
always  give  it  the  lie, 

61.1  undertook  this  little  work,  solely  for  the  purpose  of 
giving  you  useful  knowledge.  This  was  my  duty.  You  are 
employed  in  creating  food  and  raiment  and  lodging  for  me, 
as  well  as  for  all  others  who  do  not  labour  with  their  bodies  ; 
and  it  is  my  duty  to  supply  you  with  that  knowledge  which 
I  have  been  able  to  acquire,  in  consequence  of  my  being 
supplied  with  the  necessaries  of  life  by  your  labour.  At  this 
moment,  I  can  communicate  no  knowledge  to  you  so  useful 
as  that  which  relates  to  the  recent  events  in  France ;  be- 
cause, as  I  shall  clearly  show  you,  those  events  are  closely 
connected,  and  almost  identified,  with  our  own  public  affairs^ 
and  with  the  interests  of  every  man  of  us. 

62.  Pray  observe,  that  all  possible  efforts  are  making  ta 
induce  us  to  believe,  that  we  are  not  at  all  in  the  situation 
in  which  the  French  would  have  been,  if  their  abominable 
tyrants  had  succeeded.  You  may  guess  at  the  motive  of 
these  efforts  :  and  you  will  judge  of  the  falseness  of  the 
opinions  which  they  are  intended  to  inculcate,  before  I 
have  concluded  the  observations  that  I  am  about  to  make. 
I  am  not  going  to  give  you  a  history  or  narrative  of  the  re- 
cent transactions  in  France.  You  will  find  that  done  in  a 
little  work,  published  in  weekly  numbers  in  London,  at 
Strange's  Publication  Warehouse,  in  Paternoster- 
row,  These  numbers  are  published  weekly,  price  two-pence, 
and  are  very  well  worthy  of  your  attention.  It  is  not  a  his- 
tory of  this  great  event  that  I  am  about  to  give  you  ;  but  I 
am  going  to  prove  to  you,  that  the  Bourbon  family  have  lost 
their  crown  by  attempting  to  force  upon  France  a  govern- 
ment like  that  which  exists  in  England  now.     What  I  am 


1st  September,  1830.  51 

about  to  prove,  I  will  state  to  you  first  shortly  the  substance, 
in  five  distinct  propositions,  as  follows : 

1.  That  it  was  the  English  Borough  mongers  who  insti- 
gated the  ex- King  of  France  to  attempt  to  take  away 
the  right  of  the  people  to  choose  their  representatives. 

2.  That  our  Boroughmongers  intended  to  make  the  two 
legislative  Chambers  in  France  totally  independent  of 
the  voice  of  the  people. 

3.  That  the  people  of  France  well  understood  what  the 
government  of  England  was,  and  saw  clearly,  that  the 
English  Boroughmongers  were  about  to  do  this  for  their 
own  sake. 

4.  That  to  preVent  their  doing  this,  the  people  of  Paris 
shed  their  blood. 

5.  And  that,  therefore,  the  family  of  Bourbon  owe  the  loss 
of  their  crown  to  the  resolution  of  the  people  of  France 
to  die  rather  than  to  submit  to  a  government  like  that 
of  England. 

63.  Before  I  enter  upon  these  propositions,  I  have  some 
remarks  to  make  upon  the  conduct  of  the  Whigs,  and  half 
Whigs,  who  are  full  as  much  mortified  at  this  event  as  the 
Bourbons  themselves.     Upon  all  occasions,  they  have  endea- 
voured, whenever  they  have  opened  their  lips  upon  the  sub* 
ject,  to  cause  the  people  to  believe,  that  we  have  nothing  at 
all  to  do  in  this  affair,  except  merely  to  express  our  admira- 
tion of  the  people  of  Paris^  who  have  now  got  for  themselves 
just  such  a  government  as  ours ;  and  that  we  ought  to 
admire  them,  and  praise  them,  because  they  have  "paid  us 
the  compliment  of  fighting,  even  unto  death,  in  order  to 
obtain  the   high  prize  of  a?i  English  government.     This 
has  been  the  language  of  the  whole  crew,  wherever  they 
have  met.     But  it  w^as  particularly  the  language  of  the 

D  2 


52  Two-penny  Trash; 

Scotch  Whig  place-hunters,  who  met  at  Edinburgh  not  many 
days  ago.  The  great  talkers  were  one  Jeffrey,  an  Edin- 
burgh reviewer,  one  Cockburne,  a  lawyer,  a  Doctor 
Mackintosh,  who  is,  I  suppose,  a  parson,  one  Simpson, 
who  appears  to  be  a  lawyer,  too,  and  several  others,  amongst 
whom  was  our  Middlesex  and  Greek-bond  gentlemen. 
Another  time,  I  mean  to  expose  the  folly,  as  well  as  the 
insincerity  of  this  crew,  who  manifestly  got  up  this  meeting, 
at  which  they  resolved  not  to  subscribe  for  the  widows  and 
orphans  of  Paris  :  they  manifestly  got  up  this  meeting  to 
prevent  a  meeting  of  the  sincere,  middle  and  working  classes, 
who  are  found  in  Edinburgh,  as  w^ell  as  every-where  else. 
This  grand  meeting  w^as  to  be  a  damper^  to  keep  the  honest 
and  sincere  cool  and  quiet ;  and  even  if  it  should  finally  fail, 
1  should  not  fail  to  take  the  will  for  the  deed. 

.'  64.  The  crafty  and  hypocritical  crew,  being  thus  assem- 
bled, praised  the  valour  of  the  Parisians  to  the  skies; 
commended  them  for  their  promptitude  and  valour  ;  but 
above  all  things,  for  their  having  spared  their  bloody- 
minded  enemies,  who,  be  it  observed,  never  spared  them; 
v/ho  were  coolly  playing  at  cards  while  the  sanguinary  Swiss, 
who  had  so  long  been  clothed  and  fed  by  the  industrious 
people  of  Paris,  were  butchering  those  very  people.  But, 
what  delighted  these  Scotch  tax-eaters  most,  was,  the  dis- 
covering that  this  revolution  in  France  had  given  the  French 
a  Government  so  very  much  like  ours ;  had  given  them  a 
state  of  freedom  and  of  happiness  almost  equal  to  our  own; 
and  that,  of  course,  we  could  want  no  changes  here^  being 
already  in  possession  of  what  the  brave  Parisians  had  been 
fighting  for !  Filthy  hypocrites  !  Base,  but  baffled  deceivers. 
Some  of  the  good  fellows  of  Edinburgh,  Paisley,  and  Glas- 
gow, wdll  read  this  paper ;  but,  even  without  reading  it,  they 
would  have  detected  this  scandalous  cheat. 


1st  September,  1830.  53 

65.  Now,  turning  off  these  hypocrites  with  the  back  of 
our  hand,  let  us  come  to  my  five  propositions,  as  stated  above  : 
let  us  take  them  one  at  a  time  and  go  patiently  through  them ; 
and,  when  we  have  done  that,  we  may  defy  the  devil  to  de- 
ceive us.     The  first  proposition  is, — 

1.  That  it  was  the  English  boroughmongers  that  insti- 
'     gated  the  ex-King  of  France  to  take  away  the  right  of 
the  people  to  choose  their  representatives. 

66.  Some  one  will  say,  ^*  Why  should  our  borough- 
mongers  do  this  V^  The  reasons,  my  friends,  are  abundant. 
The  distress  into  which  the  nation  has  been  plunged  by  the 
enormous  taxation,  has  made  the  people,  every- where,  wish 
for  and  petition  for  a  reform  in  the  House  of  Commons.  This 
feeling  has  been  gaining  ground  very  fast,  for  more  thau 
three  years  :  and  the  divers  exposures  which  have  takea 
place,  together  with  our  own  acute  sufferings,  have  made 
even  the  farmers  cry  aloud  for  parliamentary  reform.  Thafc 
measure  necessarily  implies  the  destruction  of  boroughmon- 
gering  and  all  its  profits.  One  of  our  great  arguments  in 
favour  of  reform  was,  the  prosperous  and  easy  situation  of 
the  people  of  France.  '*  Look,"  we  said,  **  there  are  the 
'^  people  of  France  ;  they  experience  no  distress;  they  want 
"  no  corn  bills;  they  do  not  live  on  cold  potatoes ;  they  have 
"  no  tithes ;  they  have  no  hordes  of  pension  and  sinecure 
**  people ;  they  have  no  bishops  rolling  in  wealth  ;  no  rectors 
**  with  two  or  three  livings  each  ;  no  poor  curates  starving 
*^  upon  a  miserable  pittance  ;  and  why  is  it  thus  so  well  ia 
"  France?  Because,  and  only  because,  there  are  no  rotten 
"  boroughs  and  no  boroughmongers  in  France ;  only  because 
**  the  people  choose  their  representatives  theynselveSy  and 
"  choose  them  by  ballot,*^ 

67.  The  argument  was  so  powerful,  the  facts  so  noto- 
rious, the  premises  so  true,  and  the  conclusion  so  natural 


54  Two-penny  Trash; 

and  so  close,  that  it  terrified  our  boroughmongers.  They  saw 
clearly  that  they  must  give  way,  oi  put  down  this  example 
of  happiness  arising  out  of  free  elections.  They  saw  that 
if  that  thing-  continued  there,  their  traffic  could  not  continue; 
indeed  the  object  of  the  twenty-two  years*  war  was  lost. 
It  is  notorious  that  the  object  of  that  war  was  to  prevent  par- 
liamentary reform  ;  and  that  the  object  would  be  totally  de- 
feated if  they  could  not  now  conjure  up  something  to  prevent 
France  from  being  an  example  to  England.  If  they  could 
so  contrive  it  that  the  people  of  France  should  be  deprived  of 
the  right  of  election,  and  that  the  crown  and  the  peers 
should,  in  fact,  return  all,  or  a  majority  of,  the  members  to 
the  lower  house,  then  they  had  an  answer  ready  for  the  re- 
formers. "  There,''  they  would  have  said,  "  you  wild  and 
"  visionary  men,  you  see  that  the  French  have  tried  free 
"  election  and  ballot;  they  have  found  that  it  will  not  do  ; 
*'  they  have  given  it  up,  you  see,  and  therefore,  let  us  hear 
*^  no  more  of  your  foolish  noise  about  reform." 

68.  Thus  then,  the  VVHY  is  clear :  the  boroughmongers 
bad  reasons  more  than  sufficiently  powerful  for  instigating 
the  Bourbons  to  do  what  they  did  ;  and,  now,  let  us  look  at 
tTie  facts  in  support  of  the  charge  that  they  did  thus  instigate 
them.  In  the  first  place,  Polignac,  who  was  to  be  the 
instrument  in  the  work,  was  an  old  emigrant  who  had  long 
resided  in  England,  had  married  an  English  woman,  had 
been  a  good  while  the  French  ambassador  in  London,  when, 
in  August,  1829  (pay  attention  to  dates),  he  went  from 
England  to  France,  to  be  invested  with  the  office  of  Prime 
Minister.  Now,  take  these  facts  ;  that  he  had  lived  and 
bad  been  in  some  sort  bred  up  amongst  our  boroughmongers  ; 
that,  the  moment  he  was  appointed  Prime  Minister,  all  our 
boroughmonger  publications,  daily,  weekly,  monthly,  and 
quarterly,  began  to  praise  the  appointment;  and  that,  as 
soon  as  the  discontent  of  the  French  began  to  appear, 
these  publications  fell  foul  of  the  people  of  France  and  upon 
the  honest  part  of  the  press,  and  began  to  insist  that  some 
great  change  was  necessary  in  France  ;  and  that,  for  the 
peace  of  Europe  (that  is  to  say  the  upholding  of  borough- 
njongering),  the  Governmentof  France  ought  to  be  rendered 
more  monarchical.     Things  were  going  on  thus  in  England, 


1st  September,  1830.  55 

when  the  legislative  Chambers  met  in  France,  in  March  or 
April  last :  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  that  is  to  say,  the 
Commons  House,  voted  an  address  to  the  king,  which  as  good 
as  told  him  that  he  should  have  no  money  to  be  laid  out  by 
this  ministry  whose  tyrannical  intentions  were  well  known. 

69.  But,  before  I  say  more  of  this,  I  must  go  back 
«ome  months.  The  Polignac  ministiy  was,  as  we  have  seen 
before,  installed  in  the  month  of  August  1829,  and  very 
early  in  that  month,  the  French  press,  faithful  to  its  duty, 
warned  the  people  of  the  danger,  told  them  that  Polignac 
intended  to  make  them  submit  to  a  Government  like  that  of 
England,  and  called  upon  them  to  resist.  The  press  was 
prosecuted  with  all  the  rigours  of  the  law,  which,  however, 
by  no  means  checked  that  press,  which  persevered  in  a 
manner  that  will  reflect  everlasting  honour  on  it.  The  na- 
tion became  fully  sensible  of  the  danger,  and  the  people 
themselves  began  to  prepare  for  resistance  so  early  as  the 
month  of  February  in  the  present  year.  What  they  dreaded 
was,  that  they  should  be  deprived  of  the  right  of  freely 
choosing,  and  by  ballot,  their  own  representatives]  they 
saw  that,  if  they  had  taxes  imposed  upon  them  by  men 
chosen  by  the  king  or  the  peers,  or  both  together,  they  should 
be  slaves.  They  began  to  form  associations  for  legal  resist- 
ance, in  the  first  place.  A  part  of  Francecalled  Brittany 
had  the  great  honour  to  set  the  example  5  and,  after  some 
consultation  on  the  subject,  the  leaders  there  met,  and  agreed 
to  form  an  association  on  the  following  grounds,  and  for  the 
following  purposes,  as  expressed  in  their  declaration  and  pro- 
positions, every  word  of  which  I  do  beseech  you  to  read 
with  attention  ! 

*'  We,  the  undersio^ned  inhabitants  of  the  five  departments  of  the 
ancient  province  of  Brittany,  under  the  cogiiizance  and  protection 
of  the  Royal  Court  of  Rennes,  bound  hy  our  own  oaths,  aud  by  those 
of  the  chiefs  of  our  families,  to  the  duty  of  fidelity  to  the  king,  and 
of  attachment  to  the  Charter;  considering  that  a  hamilful  of  politi- 
cal intriguers  have  threatened  to  attempt  the  audacious  project  of 
overturning  the  constitutional  guarantees  established  by  the  Char- 
ter; considering  that  it  is  due  to  their  character  and  their  honour 
to  imitate  the  generous  resistance  of  their  ancestors  against  the  en- 
croachments, the  caprices,  and  the  abuse  of  Ministerial  power  ; 
considering  that  resistance  by  physical  force  would  be  a  dreadful 
calamity,  and  that  it  would  be  without  motive  while  the  means  of 


56  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

legal  resistance  remain  open  to  us;  that  in  recurring  to  the  judicial 
power,  the  best  prospect  of  success  is  to  assure  the  oppressors  of  a 
fraternal  and  substantial  union  ;  under  the  ties  of  honour  and  of 
right  we  therefore  resolve — 

**  1st.  To  subscribe  individually  the  sura  of  10  francs,  besides  a 
tenth  part  subsidiarily  of  the  contributions  subscribed  by  the  under- 
signed in  the  electorial  lists  of  1830,  and  we  oblige  ourselves  lo  pay 
to  the  order  of  the  General  Collectors,  should  it  become  necessary 
to  name  them,  in  conformity  with  ihe  third  of  these  resolutions. 

**  2d.  This  subscription  is  to  form  a  common  fund  for  Brittany, 
destined  to  indemnify  the  subscribers  for  the  expenses  they  may 
incur  in  consequence  of  the  refusal  to  pay  any  public  contributions 
ilte^ully  imposed,  either  without  the  free,  regular,  and  consti- 
tutional concurrence  of  the  King  and  the  two  Chambers,  as  con- 
stituted by  the  Charter,  or  with  the  concurrence  of  Chambers, 
formed  by  an  electoral  systemy  which  should  exclude  our  right  of  voting  iri 
the  choice  of  representatives, 

<*  3d.  In  case  of  the  official  proposition,  either  of  an  unconstitu- 
tional change  in  the  electoral  system,  or  of  the  legal  establishment 
of  taxes,  two  mandatories  from  each  arondissement  are  to  meet  at 
Poutivy,  and  as  soon  as  they  are  met  to  the  number  of  twenty,  they 
are  to  name,  from  among  the  subscribers,  three  General  Collectors, 
and  one  Sub-Collector,  in  each  of  the  five  departments. 

**  4th.  The  duties  of  the  Sub-Collectors  are — 1st,  To  receive 
subscriptions  ;  2d,  To  satisfy  indemnities,  conformably  to  article 
2d  ;  3d,  On  the  requisition  of  a  subscriber,  disturbed  by  an  illegal 
contribution,  to  conduct  in  his  name,  under  the  care  of  the  Sub- 
Collector  of  his  department,  or  of  a  delegate  named  in  his  arron- 
dissement,  the  defence  and  its  consequences,  by  all  legal  means. 
4th,  To  bring  a  civil  action  against  the  authors,  supporters,  and 
accomplices,  in  the  assessment  and  exaction  of  such  illegal 
impositions. 

*'  5th.  The    subscriber's    name,    M.  ,    and    M.   ,    as 

mandatories  for  this  arrondissement,  to  meet  the  mandatories.from 
the  other  arrondissements,  in  conformity  with  article  3d,  and  to 
transmit  their  present  subscriptions  to  the  General  Collectors  when 
named." 

70.  This,  which  very  nearly  resembles  the  American  de^ 
clarations,  at  the  time  when  this  government  of  ours  was 
preparing  to  compel  that  brave  people  to  submit  to  be  taxed 
without  being  represented,  alarmed  the  tyrants  exceedingly ; 
and  well  it  might;  for  it  brought  the  question,  at  once,  to 
issue,  without  rushing  into  civil  war,  and  without  provoking, 
or  aflfording  any  excuse  for,  military  execution.  Indirect 
taxes  could  not  be  resisted  in  this  way ;  but,  direct  taxes 


1st  September,  1830.  57 

could ;  I  mean  all  such  taxes  as  are  collected  by  the  tax- 
gatherer  coming  to  your  house  and  demanding  the  money ^ 
You  refuse  to  pay,  you  are  prosecuted  ;  you  go  into  court, 
and  plead  that  you  owe  no  taxes,  because  you  are  not  re- 
presented  ;  the  cause  is  given  against  you,  and  your  goods 
are  seized',  but  who  will  buy  your  goods,  who  will  dare  to 
buy  they  ?  You  are  put  into  jail,  suppose ;  but  then  this 
fund  provides  an  indemnity  for  you.  However,  the  thing 
could  never  go  thus  far :  the  government  must  resolve  on 
open  war ;  or  it  must  give  way.  Nothing  was  ever  more 
admirable  than  this,  nothing  more  safe,  nothing  more  effeC" 
tual.  And  thus  stood  the  people,  resolved  to  face  Polignac 
and  his  masters,  when  the  Chambers  gave  their  answer  to 
the  King,  as  mentioned  a  little  way  back. 

71.  Having  received  this  answer,  the  King  dissolved  the 
Chambers,  hoping  to  get  more  pliant  men  by  anew  election. 
He  was  deceived  ;  for  he  got  all  the  same  stout  men  again, 
and  many  others  in  addition.  But,  when  he  had  dissolved, 
the  Chambers,  our  boroughmonger  press  broke  forth  wdth 
fresh  fury  against  the  press  and  the  people  of  France,  and 
urged  Polignac  to  put  them  down  by  force,  saying  that 
the  French  were  7iot  fit  for  liberty,  such  as  we  enjoyed, 
which  was,  indeed,  very  true  ;  and,  at  any  rate,  they  were 
resolved  not  to  have  it.  But,  that  part  of  our  press,  most 
notoriously  belonging  to  the  Boroughmongers,  I  mean  the 
QuARTER^LY  Review,  threw  off  the  mask  completely,  and 
told  Polignac  that  he  must  put  down  the  press,  and  take 
aiuay  the  right  of  representation  !  This  review  was  pub^ 
lished  in  the  month  of  May ;  and  the  following  passage 
from  it  will  leave  no  doubt  in  your  minds,  that  the  writer 
(a  mere  hireling)  knew,  in  May,  precisely  what  Polfgn  AG 
would  do  in  July,  I  pray  you  to  read  it  with  atten- 
tion ;  and  you  will  clearly  see,  that  the  people  of  France 
were  to  be  enslaved,  lest  the  continuance  of  their  freedom 
should  give  countenance  to  our  demand  for  Parliamentary 
Reform. 

*^  We,  therefore,  hope  and  trust,  that  the  King  of  France  and  his 
"  present  ministers  may  succeed,  if  such  be  their  object,  in  estab- 
*'  lishing-  a  censorship  on  the  press,  and  likewise  in  acquiring'  sa 
*'  decided  a  preponderance  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  that  its 
*'  existence  as  an  independent  body  capable  of  bearding  the  monarchy y 

d5 


-58  Two»PENNY  Trash  ; 


*^.as  it  has  recently  done,  shall  be  no  longer  recognised.  This,  we 
**  owD,  will  be  a  virtual  abolition  of  the  charter,  but  the  question  is 
*^  obviously  reduced  to  this  :  Shall  the  monarchy,  which  is  suitable 
to  the  country,  he  overthrown,  or  shall  the  charter,  which,  in 
every  possible  view,  is  unsuitable  to  it,  be  afyrogated?  It  will  be 
*^  asked,  Why.  7ieed  we  care  what  France  does  ?  Why  not  let  her  do 
*'  what  she  pleases?  What  have  we  to  do  with  her  institutions,  as 
**  a  nation,  more  than  we  have  with  the  domestic  arrangements  of 
*'  our  next-door  neighbour  in  the  street?  The  answer  to  this,  un- 
*'  fortunately,  is  but  too  ready.  If  our  neighbour  merely  beats  his 
*'  wife  and  children,  and  regulates  his  personal  concerns  in  the 
•*  worst  way  possible,  we  have  no  right  to  complain;  but  if  he  gets 
*^  intoxicated,  and  flings  about  firebrands,  so  as  not  only  to  set  his 
**  own  house  on  fire,  but  to  threaten  the  destruction  of  the  whole 
^^ parish,  we  are  compelled,  in  spite  of  our  love  of  quiet,  to  take 
**  a  lively  interest  in  the  proceedings.  If  the  French  could  be  ciV" 
''  cuinscribed  by  a  great  Chinese  wall,  within  which  they  might  cut 
*'  one  another's  throats,  an  experiment  to  their  hearts'  content  on 
*'  irieligioo  and  democracy,  it  would  signify  less  to  the  neighbour- 
*'  ing  countries.  But  when  the  amplest  experience  proves,  that  no 
**  commotion  of  any  extent  in  France  ever  fails  to  embroil  the  rest 
**  of  the  world,  and  when  we  know  that  there  are  innumerable  ob- 
**  jects  of  ambition,  of  aggrandisement,  and  of  national  revenge,  all 
**  at  this  hour  conspiring  to  stimulate  a  large  portion  of  the  French 
*'  population  to  fresh  wars,  we  cannot  possibly  view  their  present 
**  unsettled  state  without  the  deepest  ajixiety.  We  trust  vve  have 
"  said  enough  to  show  that  there  is  only  one  course  of  measures  by 
**  which  good  ordei'  can  be  preservttd  ;  and  however  repugnant  it 
*^  may  be  to  our  English  tastes,  the  necessity  of  the  case  requires 
**  that  we  should  not  shrink  from  the  trial,  but  be  prepared  to  wit- 
*'  ness,  as  the  less  grievous  of  the  two  evils,  the  temporary  re* 
**  establishment  of  a  tolerably  absolute  authority  on  the  part  of  the 
**  crown  of  France,  if  this  be  impossible,  or  if  the  attempt  be 
*«  BUNGLED  IN  THE  JSXECUTION,  we  may  bid  adieu  to  re- 
**  pose,  and  buckle  on  our  armour  for  another  quarter  of  a  century  of 
*'  wars.  VN'e  think  it  is  hardly  possible  to  doubt  that,  unless  the 
**  existing  Government  adopts,  and  succeeds  in  carrying  into 
^^  eS^ct,  some  very  decisive  measure  IN  THE  COURSE  OF  THE 
'*  PRESENT  YEAR,  there  will  ensue  another  burst  of  convulsion : 
*'  and  Napoleon  has  left  no  saying  of  more  iudiiputable  truth 
*^  behind  him,  than  that  a  revolution  in  France  is  a  revolution  in 
**  Europe.** 

72.  I  need  add  no  comment.  The  proof  is  complete; 
thousands  of  men  have  been  hanged  upon  evidence  less  clear 
than  this.  I  have  clearly  shown  the  powerful  motive  that 
the  Boroughmongers  had  for  instigating  Polignac;  here 
is  the  act  of  instigation ;  and  that  this  writer  is  hired  by  the 
Boroughmonyers,  is  as  notorious  as  that  my  name  is  Wil- 
liam   COBBETT. 


1st  September,  1830.  59 

2.  That  the  Boroughmongers  intended  to  make  the  two 
legislative  Chambers  of  France  like  the  two  Houses  of 
Parliament  in  England. 

3.  That  the  people  of  France  well  understood  what  the 
government  of  England  was,  and  clearly  saw  that  the 
Boroughmongers  were  about  to  do  this  for  their  own 
sake. 

73.  The  first  of  these  propositions  is  proved  by  the  above 
extract  from  the  Quarterly  Review,  and  from  Polignac's 
ordinances.  The  Review,  in  another  part  of  it  says,  that 
the  power  of  choosing  a  majority  of  the  Deputies  ought 
to  he  in  the  Crown,  and  in  an  hereditary  aristocracy,  as 
it  is  in  England;  and  Polignac's  ordinances  of  the  25th 
July  provide  for  the  securing  of  this.  The  third  propo- 
sition is  established  by  a  fact  that  all  the  world  is  now  ac- 
quainted with ;  namely,  that  in  the  month  of  November 
last,  there  was  circulated  throughout  all  France,  the  fol- 
lowing description  of  the  English  government.  It  first  ap- 
peared in  a  paper  called  the  Constitutionnel,  which  is 
published  at  Paris ;  and  I  beg  you  to  read  every  word  of  it 
with  attention.  You  will  find  in  it  nothing  that  I  have  not 
said  a  hundred  times  over ;  but,  you  are  here  to  look  at  it 
as  something  that  the  people  of  France  saw,  probably,  for 
the  first  time.  Do,  pray,  read  it  with  attention.  This,  and 
other  such  publications,  produced  the  glorious  event  at  Paris. 
Read  this  description,  and  then  you  will  cease  to  wonder  at 
what  has  taken  place.  After  speaking  of  systems  of  oppres- 
sion, which  cannot  in  these  days  be  put  in  force,  the  writer 
proceeds  thus : 

'*  There  is  a  third  system,  which  it  would  be  much  more  practi- 
cable to  put  into  execution  than  any  orthese.  It  is  what  England 
is  offering  us  the  model  of,  and  M.  de  Polignac  has  just  been  trying 
to  set  in  operation,  namely,  the  system  of  making  slaves  and  tools 
of  all  the  working  classes  in  a  body,  by  the  higher  orders,  under 
ctmstitutional  forms  and  names.  In  this  system,  which  the  English 
Government  understands  prodigiously  well,  the  power  of  making  the 
laws  belong  exclusively  to  the  members  of  the  aristocracy ;  public 
situations,  which  are  the  road  to  honours  and  to  fortune,  fall  to  the 
share  of  nobody  but  those  who  are  vested  with  the  power  of  making 
the  laws,  their  children,  or  relations  ;  and  the  people,  who  do  the 
work,  are  the  property  in  fee  of  those  who  have  the  management  of 
public  affairs.    The  English  aristocracy  displays  great  intelligence 


60  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

iu  the  way  in  which   it  accomplishes  its  ends  with  the  working 
classes.     It  leaves  them  all  the  means  for  the  production  of  wealth; 
and  everyone  of  the  individuals  under  its  influence  may  choose  the 
business  by  which  he  thinks  he  can  get  the  most.     All  attempts  on 
the  security  of  individual  property,  which  would  only  cause  capital 
to  disappear  and  hinder  production,  are  completely  put  down.    The 
•people  that  work   are  neither  hampered  nor  disturbed  in  their  la- 
bours, but  are  as  free  in  their  industry  and  their  commerce  as  bees 
in  a  hive.  The  workingclasses,  however,  derive  no  more  advantage, 
in  the  end,  from  this  freedom  in  their  operations,  than  the  bees  do 
from  the  honey  they  take  so  much  pains  to  make.    The  higher  or- 
ders, through  the  medium  of  the  taxes  which  they  alone  have  the 
privilege  of  laying,  soak  up  the  greatest  part  of  the  produce,  and 
divide  it  under  different  names  among  the  members  of  their  body. 
To  describe  the  thing  properly,  the  English  Parliament  performs  the 
office  of  a  pump;  it  sucks  up  the  wealth  produced  by  the  working 
classes,  and  turns  it  over  into  the  hands  of  the  families  of  the  aris- 
tocracy. But  as  it  is  a  machine  that  has  a  head,  and  can  think,  it 
leaves  the  working  people  as  much  as  is  necessary  for  them  to  go 
on  working.     The  English  aristocracy  allow  a  certain  number  of 
men  from   the  ranks  of  the  people  to  find  their  way  into  the  two 
houses  of  Parliament :   and  it  is  for  the  interest  of  its  supremacy 
that  it  should  be  so.    If  the  body  that  makes  the  laws  consisted  en- 
tirely of  the  persons  for  whose  advantage  the  industrious  portion 
of  the  community  is  set  to  work,  they  might  bring  their  power  into 
peril  by  demanding  of  the  people  more  than  it  was  able  to  pay.  The 
men  from  among  the  people  who  find  their  way  into  Parliament^ 
take  care  to  let  them  know  when  they  are  running  into  danger. 
THE  OPPOSITION,  in  the  machine  of  Government,  does  the  duty 
of  the  safety-valve  in  a  steam-engine.     It  does  not  stop  the  fnotion ; 
but  it  preserves  the  machine,  by  letting  off  m  smoke  the  power  that 
otherwise  might  blow  it  up.    The  exercise  of  aristocratical  power 
being  attached  to  the  possession  of  great  landed  property,  it  is  eas^ 
to  see  that  younger  brothers  can  have  no  share  in  the  real  estates 
■which  may  be  left  by  their  relatives  at  their  decease.   The  descend- 
ants of  an  aristocratic  family  would,  in  fact,  all  sink  into  the  ranks 
of  the  common  people,  if  they  were  to  divide  what  is  left  by  their 
relations  in  equal  shares.     The  eldest  son  therefore  keeps  to  him- 
self all  the  landed  property,  to  which  is  attached  the  exercise  of 
aristocratical  power;  and  then  he  makes  use  of  this  power  to  get 
money  for  his  younger  brothers,  at  the  expense  of  the  working 
classes.     It  is  a  mistake  to  imagine,  that  in  England  all  the  pro- 
perty of  a  family  in  the  higher  orders  goes  exclusively  to  the  eldest 
son.     It  is  true,  he  takes  the  landed  property,  which  is  exclusively 
the  family  estate.     But  the  younger  brothers  have  for  their  share 
rich  livings  in  tlie  church,  sinecures  or  places  of  some  kind,  which 
the  public  is  obliged  to  pay  for;  and  all  these  are  considered  as 
part  of  the  family  property,  as  much  as  the  other.    For  there  never 
can  be  too  much   pains  taken  to  impress  the  fact,  that  the  higher 
orders  consider  themselves  as  having  a  property,  not  only  in  the 
landed  estates  which  they  possess  by  direct  title,  but  in  the  work- 


1st  September,  1830.  61 

ing  classes  besides,  on  whom  they  lay  taxes  as  they  please,  and 
share  the  proceeds  among  thems<flves.  The  hisrher  orders  in  Great 
Britain  (who  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  English  people,  a 
people  who  are  at  their  mercy  to  take  what  toll  they  please)  will 
never  allow  the  working  classes  in  any  country  to  be  their  own 
masters,  as  long  as  they  can  do  any-thing  to  hinder  it.  They  know 
very  well  that  their  own  power  over  the  working  classes  in  the 
countries  under  their  control,  will  never  be  out  of  danger  of  being 
disputed,  till  the  working  classes  of  all  other  countries^  too,  are  made 
the  jyroperty  of  a  family  or  of  a  caste.  And  hence  it  is  that  they  are 
found  on  all  occasions  making  common  cause  with  barbarism 
against  civilization.  They  take  the  part  of  Austria  against  Italy, 
Don  Miguel  against  Don  Pedro,  and  theTurks  against  the  Greeks, 
If  they  ever  make  a  show  of  declaring  for  the  defenders  of  freedom, 
it  is  only  to  get  hold  of  the  direction  of  their  affairs,  and  hand  them 
over  to  their  enemies.  Any-where,  and  every-where,  in  short,  where 
they  espy  the  seeds  of  any-thing  like  liberty,  they  hurry  off  to 
spoil  or  smother  them.  If  we  judge  of  the  plans  of  the  Polignac 
ministry  by  the  past  proceedings  of  the  individuals  that  compose 
it,  and  by  what  is  let  out  by  the  papers  in  the  service  of  the  English 
Ministry,  it  is  easy  to  tell  what  kind  of  transformation  the  Charter 
is  intended  to  undergo  in  their  hands.  All  Frenchmen  will  be  equal 
in  point  of  law,  whatever  in  other  respects  their  title  or  their  rank; 
but  the  great  mass  of  the  population  will  be  stricken  with  political 
incapacity,  and  all  public  power  will  belong  to  the  aristocracy. 
They  will  all  contribute  indiscriminately,  in  proportion  to  their 
property,  to  the  expenses  of  the  state  ;  but  the  members  of  the 
aristocracy  will  take  back  again,  under  the  name  of  pensions  or  of 
salaries,  the  portion  that  they  have  paid,  and  divide  the  rest  among 
themselves  besides.  They  will  be  equally  admissible  by  law  to 
both  civil  and  military  offices ;  but  there  will  be  nobody  really  ad- 
mitted, except  at  the  good  pleasure  of  the  aristocracy,  and  to  serve 
its  purposes.  Personal  liberty  will  be  guaranteed  to  every-body  : 
and  nobody  will  be  seized  or  prosecuted,  but  in  the  ways  and  terms 
the  aristocracy  has  fixed  upon.  Every  man  will  have  equal  liberty 
to  profess  his  religion,  and  receive  the  same  protection  for  his  forms 
of  worship ;  only  nobody  must  utter  any  opinion  that  may  be  con- 
trary to  the  tenets  of  the  church.  Every-body  in  France  will  have 
a  right  to  publish  and  print  his  thoughts  ;  at  his  own  risk,  if  he 
says  any-thing  that  is  against  the  interests  of  the  church  and  the 
aristocracy.  To  wind  up  all,  property  of  all  kinds  will  be  quite 
secure ;  only  the  aristocracy  will  have  the  power  of  laying  it  under 
any  contributions  they  think  proper,  and  so  applying  it  to  their 
own  use.— THIS  IS  THE  SORT  OF  CHARTER  the  Polignac 
ministry  would  bestow  on  France,  if  it  succeeded  in  getting  a 
majority  in  the  Chambers,  and  the  King's  consent.  It  is  for  the 
electors  to  consider  whether  they  choose  to  put  up  with  SUCH  an 
order  of  things.     Their  fate  IS  IN  THEIR  OWN  HANDS. 

74.  There,  my  lads  of  the  working  classes,  that  is  the 
picture  that  roused  the  French.    That  is  the  picture  that 


62  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

made  the  working  people  of  Paris  fly  to  arms.  Whether 
the  picture  be  true  or  false,  I  will  leave  you  to  decide ;  but, 
at  any  rate,  you  must  now  be  satisfied,  that  this  is  what  our 
boroughmongers  intended  to  cause  to  be  introduced  into 
France;  and, 

4.  That,  to  prevent  their  doing  this,  the  people  of  Paris 
shed  their  blood  ;  and, 

5.  That,  therefore,  the  Bourbons  owe  the  loss  of  their 
crown  to  the  resolution  of  the  people  of  France,  7iot  to 
submit  to  a  government  like  that  of  England. 

75.  I  will  attempt  no  commentary.  You  now,  my  friends, 
see  the  true  cause  of  the  glorious  achievement  in  France.  It 
was  not  "  seditious  writings;"  it  was  not  love  of  change  ; 
it  was  not  want  of  religion  ;  it  was  nothing  but  a  conviction, 
that  the  Polignac  Ministry  intended  to  bend  their  necks 
to  a  boroughmonger  system',  rather  than  submit  to  which, 
they  resolved  to  shed  their  blood  ;  and,  as  it  is  clear  that 
Polignac  and  his  master  were  instigated  to  the  base  at- 
tempt by  our  boroughmongers,  to  them  Charles  and  his 
family  owe  the  loss  of  their  crown !  Let  them  now,  then, 
condole  with  one  another :  they  are  all  got  together  here  r 
let  them  howl,  while  the  sensible  and  brave  people  of  France 
dance  and  sing. 

76.  But  there  is  one  part  of  the  above  picture  to  which 
I  must  call  your  particular  attention.  It  is  that  which  ex- 
hibits our  "  OPPOSITION,"  which  "  in  the  machine  of 
*^  government,  does  the  duty  of  a  safety-valve  in  a  steam- 
^'  engine.  It  does  not  stop  the  motion;  but  it  preserves 
**  the  machine,  by  letting  ofiF,  in  smoke,  the  power,  which, 
*'  otherwise  might  blow  it  upj^  How  true  this  is  !  How  I 
should  like  to  take  the  man  by  the  hand  that  wrote  this ! 
^^  Aye,"  say  the  boroughmongers,  **  and  we  know  where  he 
got  ity  Yes,  you  base  wretches,  you  do  know  where  he  got 
it,  and  I  know  too  ;  and  it  glads  my  heart  to  think  how  I 
have  reached  you,  in  spite  of  all  your  power  and  all  your 
cunning  and  all  your  hypocrisy  and  all  your  malice.  This 
is  really  like  *'  bread  thrown  upon  the  waters  ;*  it  is  come 
back  again  after  many  days.  France  owes  her  deliverance 
to  the  good  sense  and  to  the  valour  of  the  people ;  but  that 
€easc  and  that  valour  would  not  have  been  exercised  had 


1st  September,  1830.  63 

not  the  press  pointed  out  the  danger;  and  the  press  of 
France  could  not  have  pointed  out  the  danger,  notwith- 
standing the  great  ability  of  the  writers,  if  those  writers  had 
not  been  in  possession  of  the  facts ;  and  those  facts  were 
furnished  by  me,  and  never  by  any -body  else.  Our  great 
curse  has  been,  the  deceiving  of  the  people  by  sham  patriots, 
who  have  passed  under  the  name  of  political  parties. 
When  I  was  a  child,  it  was  the  court-party  and  the 
country -party.  This  was  a  fraud  upon  the  people;  but 
after  this  came  Tories  and  Whigs  (taking  up  names  that 
had  been  in  use  more  than  a  century  before) ;  and,  each 
choosing  a  leader,  the  Tories  were  called  Pittites,  and  the 
Whigs  Foxites ;  and  thus,  for  about  thirty  years,  they  were 
drawn  out  in  battle  array,  the  two  parties  taking  care  not  to 
injure  one  another,  each  laying  hold  of  the  public  wealth, 
and  pulling  and  tearing  like  two  savage  wolves  striving  for 
the  exclusive  possession  of  a  sheep.  In  the  year  1806, 
when  the  Foxites  had  put  out  the  Pittites,  and  got  into  their 
place,  or,  rather,  had  made  a  compromise  and  coalition 
with  a  part  of  the  Pittites,  and  had  agreed  to  an  indemnity 
for  all  the  atrocious  deeds  of  the  Pitt  faction ;  then  it 
w^as  that  I  set  myself  to  work  to  break  up  all  parties ;  lay- 
ing it  down  as  a  maxim  that  the  one  was  just  as  bad  as  the 
other,  and  that  the  opposition  was  a  mere  sham,  intended 
to  keep  the  people  quiet  while  each  party  plundered  them 
alternately. 

77.  From  this  time,  w^hich  is  now  four-and-twenty  years 
ago,  I  have  been  abhorred  by  these  factions,  and  have  most 
severely  suffered  in  consequence  of  that  abhorrence ;  but  I 
have  demolished  the  factions,  and  the  words  Tory  and 
Whig  now  excite  ridicule  and  contempt  at  the  bare  sound 
of  them.  The  words  "  opposition'  and  *^  gentlemen  oppo* 
site/*  are  become  equally  contemptible.  The  people  have 
long  looked  upon  the  whole  as  one  mass  of  fellows  fighting 
and  scrambling  for  public  money ;  some  fighting  to  keep  it, 
and  others  scrambling  to  get  at  it;  some  dogs  in  possession 
of  the  carcase,  and  some  growling  and  barking  because  they 
cannot  get  at  a  share.  Seeing  the  people  despising  both 
these  factions,  a  third  has  started,  to  whom  I  have  always 
given  the  name  of  SIIOY-HOYS ;  and  now  I  will  tell  you 


64  TwO'PENNY  Trash; 

why.     A  shoy-hoy  is  a   sham  man   or  woman,  made  of 
straw  or  other  stuff,  twisted  round  a  stake,  stuck  into  the 
ground,  and  dressed  in  clothes  of  man  or  woman,  with  arms, 
legs,  head,  and  every- thing,  and  with  a  stick  or  gun  put  into 
its  hand.     These  shoy-hoys  are  set  up  for  the  purpose  of 
driving  birds  from  injuring  the  corn  or  the  seeds,  and  some- 
times to  frighten  them  from  cherries,  or  other  fruit.     The 
people  w^ant   a  reform   of  the  parliament,  and   there   has 
for  a  long  time  (about  fifteen  or  sixteen  years)  been  a  little 
band,  who  have  professed  a  desire  to  get  parliamentary  re- 
form.   They  have  made  motions  and  speeches  and  divisions, 
with  a  view  of  keeping  the  hopes  of  the  people  alive,   and 
have  thereby  been  able  to  keep  them  quiet  from  time  to 
time.     They  have  never  desired  to  succeed;  because  success 
would  put  an  end  to  their  own  hopes  of  emolument :  but  they 
have  amused  the  people.     The  great  body  of  the  factions, 
knowing  the  reality  of  their  views,  have  been  highly  diverted 
by  their  sham  efforts,  which  have  never  interrupted  them  in 
the  smallest  degree  in  their  enjoyment  of  the  general  plun- 
der.    Just  as  happens  with  the  birds  and  the  shoy-hoys  in 
the  fields  or  gardens.     At  first,  the  birds  take  the  shoy-hoy 
for  a  real  man  or  woman  ;  and,  so  long  as  they  do  this,  they 
abstain  from  their  work  of  plunder  ;  but  after  having  for  some 
little    while    watched   the  shoy-hoy   with  their  quick   and 
piercing  eyes,  and  perceived  that  it  never  moves  hand  or 
foot,  they  totally  disregard  it,  and  are  no  more  obstructed  by 
it  than  if  it  were  a  post.     Just  so  is  it  with  these  political 
shoy-hoys ;  but  their  demerits  are  not,  like  the  field  shoy- 
hoys^  confined  to  the  doing  of  no  good  ;  they  do  mischief ; 
they  really,  like  my  friend  the  Frenchman's   safety-valve, 
assist  the  factions  in  the  work  of  plunder ;  which  I  remember 
an  instance  of,  indeed,  in  the  curious  case  of  a  horticultural 
shoy-hoy,  which  case  very  aptly  illustrates  the  functions  of 
these  political  deceivers.     The  birds  were  committing  great 
ravages  upon  some  turnip-seed  that  I  had  at  Botley.  "  Stick 
up  a  shoy-hoy,'*  said  I  to  my  bailiff.     *'  That  will  do  no 
goodj  sir;"    **  It  can  do  no  harm,  and  therefore  stick  one 
up."     He  replied,  by  telling  me,  that  he  had,  that  morning, 
in  the  garden  of  his  neighbour  Morell,  who  had  stuck  up 
a  shoy-hoy  to  keep  the  sparrows  from  his  peas,  actually  seen 
a  sparrow  settled,  with  a  pod,  upon  shoy-hoy  s  hat,  and 


1st  September,  1830.  65 

there,  as  upon  a  dining-table,  actually  pecking  out  the  peas 
and  eating  them,  which  he  could  do  with  greater  security 
there  where  he  could  look  about  him  and  see  the  approach  of 
an  enemy,  than  he  could  have  done  upon  the  ground,  where 
he  might  have  been  taken  by  surprise.  Just  exactly  such 
are  the  functions  of  our  political  shoy-hoys.  The  agricultural 
and  horticultural  shoy-hoys  deceive  the  depredating  birds 
but  a  very  short  time;  but  they  continue  to  deceive  those 
who  stick  them  up  and  rely  upon  them,  who,  instead  of 
rousing  in  the  morning,  and  sallying  upon  the  depredators 
with  powder  and  shot,  trust  to  the  miserable  shoy-hoys,  and 
thus  lose  their  corn  and  their  seeds.  Just  thus  it  is  with  the 
people,  who  are  the  dupes  of  the  political  shoy-hoys.  In 
Suffolk,  and  the  other  eastern  counties,  they  call  then^ 
mawkeses,  Mawkes  seems  to  be  the  female,  and  shoy-hoy 
the  male,  of  this  race  of  mock-human  beings ;  and  I 
suppose  that  the  farmers  in  the  east,  from  some  cause  or 
other,  look  upon  the  female  as  the  most  formidable  of  the 
two.  At  any  rate,  our  political  shams  are  of  the  masculine 
gender,  and  therefore  shoy-hoy  is  the  proper  name  for 
them. 

78.  Now  then,  who  are  our  shoy-hoys  ?  There  is  Bur- 
DETT,  who  seems  to  be  the  patriarch  of  the  race,  his  Man, 
Alderman  Shawl,  Russell,  Nugent,  Wilson,  and 
several  others,  besides  Brougham  and  Hume.  As  to 
Burdett  and  Hobhouse,  after  the  severe  pelting  at  West- 
minster, after  Shawl  and  Wilson's  keeping  away  from  the 
meetings  in  honour  of  the  French;  as  to  Russell,  wuth  his 
four  great  towns  and  his  Bloomsbury  vestry  bill  (and  which 
bill  I  shall  give  a  history  of,  one  of  these  days) ;  as  to  Nu- 
gent, who  wrote  a  letter  in  praise  of  the  deeds  of  the  people 
of  Paris,  and  who  (as  the  newspapers  tell  us)  slipped  down 
afterwards  to  visit  the  ex-King  at  Cowes;  as  to  these,  I  will 
say  no  more  now,  nor  as  to  Monck  (one  of  Burdetl's  purity- 
dinner  companions);  for  he  has  retired  to  vralk  arm  in  ana 
about  Reading  with  the  immaculate  Rhadamanthus  of  the 
consistory  court:  as  to  these  I  will  say  no  more  now,  but, 
with  regard  to  Brougham  and  Hume,  I  must  beg  you  to  be 
upon  your  guard.  Watch  them  well,  and  you  will  soon  dis- 
cover that  they  anwer  all  the  purposes  of  the  shoy-hoy  ia 


66  Two-penny  Trash; 

Morell's  garden.  Brougham  has  been  roaring  away  in  the 
north  against  him  whom  he  used  to  call  the  *'  greatest  cap- 
tain of  the  age/'  and  luhose  eloquence  he  compared  to  that 
of  Cicero,  at  the  time  when  the  Master  of  the  Rolls  was 
expected  to  die.  You  will  find  him  change  his  tone ;  and 
particularly,  you  will  find  him  shuftle  out  of  parliamentary 
reform.  You  will  find  Joseph  Hume  to  do  the  same ;  and 
indeed  he  has  already  begun  to  do  it  3  for,  at  Edinburgh, 
the  other  day,  he  observed  that  there  Tvas  **  still  further 
reform  wanted  in  this  country,^  Still!  What  does  he 
mean  by  still  ?  Further  reform  !  What  does  he  mean  by 
further  ?  Why,  I  will  tell  you  what  he  means ;  he  means, 
as  he  said  in  the  pure  House,  that  no  reform  is  wanted ,  ex- 
cept such  as  HE  can  produce  by  the  totting»up  of  figures. 
That  is  what  he  means  ;  and  I  dare  say  he  has  set  all  the 
Presbyterian  parsons  in  Scotland  to  pray  that  there  never 
may  be  a  parliamentary  reform  as  long  as  breath  shall 
warm  his  body. 

79.  The  Parliament  is  said  to  be  summoned  to  meet  on 
the  26th  of  October,  for  the  dispatch  of  business.  What 
business  ?  Of  regency,  when  we  have  got  a  king  upon  the 
throne  likely  to  live  for  twenty  years  ?  About  the  revolutions 
in  Europe  ?  What  could  the  Parliament  do  about  those  re* 
Tolutions  ?  But,  I  will  tell  you  what  it  may  meet  for:  and 
that  is  to  legalize  an  order  in  council  for  restraining  the  bank 
and  making  paper  a  legal  tender ;  and  this  I  think  by  no 
means  impossible,  but,  on  the  contrary,  very  probable,  if 
what  the  newspapers  tell  us  be  true,  relative  to  the  quantities 
of  bullion  continually  going  out  of  the  country ;  and,  if  this 
should  be  the  case,  you  will  see  what  a  figure  the  shoy- 
hoys  will  make.  Two  babies,  nice  little  round-faced  fat 
babies,  taken  out  of  any  two  cradles,  or  out  of  any  two  sets 
of  swaddling-clothes  in  any  two  Scotch  burghs,  know  just 
as  much  what  to  do  or  what  to  recommend  in  such  a  state  of 
things,  as  Brougham  and  Hume.  They  would  stand  aghast : 
they  would  cling  hold  of  the  first  folly  that  presented  itself; 
they  would  shift  their  hold  every  moment ;  and  the  great 
counties  of  York  and  of  Middlesex,  would  blush  to  hear 
them  called  their  members.  Be  it  a  question  of  foreign 
policy,  what  do  these  men  know  any-thing  more  about  it 


1st  September,  1830.  67 

than  any  real  and  genuine  shoy-hoy,  who  has  now  the  guar- 
dianship of  the  fields  ?  Oh,  how  I  should  like  to  see  them 
engaged  in  discussing  the  question,  whether  it  were  right  or 
wrong  to  make  a  hank  restriction,  in  order  to  prevent  the 
French  from  going  to  the  Rhine.  However,  there  will  be 
plenty  of  time  hereafter  for  all  these  things,  when  the  Par- 
liament shall  meet. 

80.  In  conclusion,  I  beg  leave  to  recommend  to  you  to 
meet  in  your  several  trades,  to  subscribe  your  pennies  a  piece 
for  the  relief  of  the  widows  and  the  orphans  of  Paris.  By 
paying  the  money  to  the  Editor  of  the  Morning  Chronicle, 
(who  has  acted  a  sincere  and  most  excellent  part  in  this 
business,)  or  by  leaving  it  at  my  office,  seeing  it  entered  in 
the  book,  and  taking  a  receipt,  in  the  name  of  Sir  Thomas 
Beevor,  the  Treasurer ;  by  either  of  these  means,  you  may 
be  sure  of  the  sending  of  the  money  to  Paris,  and  as  many  of 
your  names  along  with  it  as  you  choose.  Always  bear  in 
mind  that  it  was  the  working  people  of  Paris  who  per- 
formed this  great  benefit  for  all  the  industrious  people  in  the 
world.  The  slain  have  been  slain  for  you  as  well  as  for 
their  wives  and  children  ;  and  recollect  how  grateful  it  must 
be  to  those  widows  and  children  to  receive  consolation,  and 
particularly  from  you,  the  brethren  of  their  husbands  and 
fathers.  There  is  scarcely  any  man,  who  is  in  work,  who 
cannot  give  a  penny  or  twopence.  Three  pounds  have  just 
been  received  at  my  office,  from  thirty  working  men,  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Maidstone,  in  Kent.  You  remember  the 
voluntary  contributions  of  the  aristocracy  for  carrying  on 
the  dreadful  war  against  the  liberties  of  France.  The  liber- 
ties of  France  have  at  last  prevailed,  and  have  been  secured 
by  the  devotion  and  the  valour  of  the  working  people.  The 
aristocracy  and  the  clergy  do  not  subscribe  now ;  now  that 
the  object  is  for  the  relief  of  sufferers,  and  not  for  the  procur- 
ing of  destruction.  The  Quakers,  too,  where  are  they  ? 
They  could  subscribe  for  German  sufferers,  and  Russian  suf- 
ferers, and  Hanoverian  sufferers ;  aye,  and  though  their 
religion  forbade  them  to  subscribe  for  powder  and  ball,  they 
could  subscribe  to  buy  flannel  shirtfe  for  the  soldiers  that 
were  engaged  in  firing  powder  and  ball  at   the  French* 


68  Two-penny  Trash; 

Then,  let  me  hope  that  they  will  subscribe  a  little  now,  for 
here  are  the  wounded,  here  are  the  widows,  here  are  the 
orphans,  demanding  their  help. 

I  am  your  faithful  friend 

And  obedient  servant, 

Wm.  COBBETT. 


COBBEirS  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

Tii  E  first  number  of  this  work  was  published  on  the  first 
of  September.  Each  number  will  contain  thirty  pages,  at 
least,  and  will  be  sold  for  Qd,  The  history  will  be  from  the 
earliest  times,  and  will  come  down  to  the  day  when  I  pub- 
lish the  last  Number;  but,  I  have  begun  with  the  Reign 
OF  George  IV. ;  because,  while  the  facts  are  all  fresh  in 
our  minds  is  the  time  for  putting  them  on  lasting  record. 
These,  too,  justice  demanded  to  the  memory  of  his  wife. 
They  are  both  dead  now ;  she  can  suffer  no  more,  and  he 
can  enjoy  nothing  more :  all  that  ever  can  be  known  about 
tlieir  characters  and  conduct  can  now  be  collected  together; 
and  now  therefore,  is  the  time  to  lay  that  collection  before 
the  world.  This  part  of  our  history  is  demanded  also  by 
the  necessity  that  there  is  of  showing  to  the  rising  generation 
howyh/se  are  the  assertions,  that  this  reign  (including  the 
Regency)  was  prosperous  for  the  people.  Those  who  are 
now  from  17  to  21  years  of  age  can  have  very  little  know- 
ledge of  the  many  striking  transactions  of  this  calamitous 
reign,  during  which  so  many  and  such  daring  assaults  were 
made  on  our  rights  and  liberties,  and  during  which  such  suf- 
ferings were  endured  by  the  great  body  of  the  people.  Peel 
says,  "  that  we  are  too  near  to  the  advantages  which  we 
have  derived  from  the  mild  and  beneficent  reign  of  his  Ma- 


1st  September^  1830*  69 

jesty  to  be  able  fully  to  appreciate  them,*'  Indeed  !  What ! 
tQO  near  to  the  select- vestry  law,  the  new  trespass  law,  the 
transporting-poaching  law,  the  Irish  transport! ng-with-jury 
law,  too  near  to  the  dungeon  law,  and  the  famous  six  acts ; 
too  near  to  the  Italian  witnesses,  to  Castles,  Oliver,  Ed- 
wards; too  near  to  Sid  mouth,  and  Castlereagh,  and  Can- 
ning; too  near  to  all  those  and  a  thousand  other  things  and 
persons,  **  to  be  able  fully  to  appreciate  the  advantages 
we  derived  from  their  mildness  and  beneficence  r  Better  to 
stop,  I  suppose,  till  we  are  ^ot  farther  off ;  till  names  and 
dates  are  beyond  the  reach  of  all  but  a  few ;  and  till  facts 
become  matter  of  dispute y  instead  of  being  capable  of  proof, 
such  as  to  satisfy  a  judge  and  jury  !  Better  stop,  certainly, 
till  the  palace-building,  the  Irish  starvation  ;  till  the  IQth  of 
August,  till  the  500  killed  and  wounded  persons,  and  till 
the  letter  of  thanks  to  the  Yeomanry  Cavalry,  be  all  for- 
gotten! Oh,  no !  Mister  Peel,  we  will,  if  you  please, 
not  stop  so  long  as  this.  We  will,  while  the  story  is  fresh  in 
our  memory,  have  it  down  in  black  and  white ;  in  order  that 
those  who  are  coming  up  to  be  men,  may  learn  how  to  appre- 
ciate these  acts  of  **  mildness  and  beneficence,''  and  may 
know  how  they  ought  to  act  their  part  on  the  stage,  which 
is  now,  according  to  all  appearance,  going  to  be  a  very 
bustling  one.  Wm.  COBBETT. 


70  Mr.  Cobhett's  List  of  Books, 


N.  B.  All  the  Books  undermentioned,  are  published  at  No.  11,  Bolt* 
court f  Fleet-street y  London  ;  and  are  to  be  had  of  all  the  Book^ 
sellers  in  the  Kingdom, 

TZX3E:    COBBETT-I-IBIlAItir. 

When  I  am  asked  what  books  a  young  man  or  young  woman 
ought  to  read,  1  always  answer,  Let  him  or  her  read  all  the  books 
that  I  have  written.     This  does,  it  will  doubtless  be  said,  smell  of 
the  shop.     No  matter.    It  is  what  I  recommended  ;  and  experience 
has  taught  me  that  it  is  my  dutif  to  give  the  recommendation.  I  am 
speaking  here  of  books  other  than  THE  REGISTER;  and  even 
these,  that   I   call  my   LIBRARY,   consist  of  twenty-six   distinct 
books  ;  two  of  them  being  translations  ;  six  of  them  being  writ- 
ten BY  MY  SONS  ;  one  (Tull's  Husbandry)  revised  and  edited,  and 
one  published  by  me,  and  written  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  O'Callaghan, 
a  most  virtuous  tatholic  Priest.     I  divide  these  books  into  classes, 
as  follows  :   1.  Books  for  Teaching  Language;   2.  On  Domestic 
Management  and  Duties;   3.  On  Rural  Affairs;   4.  On  the 
Management  of  National  Affairs;  5.  History;  6.  Travels  ; 
7.  Laws;  8.  Miscellaneous  Politics.     Here  is  a  great  variety  of 
subjects;  and   all  of  them  very  r/ri/ ;  nevertheless  the  manner  of 
treating  them  is,  in    general,  such   as  to  induce  the  reader  to  go 
through  the  bookf  when  he  has  once  begun  it.     1  will  now  speak  of 
each  book  separately  under  the  several  heads  above-mentioned. — 
N.  B.  All  the  books  are  bound  in  boards,  which  will  be  borne  in 
mind  when  the  price  is  looked  at. 


1.  BOOKS  FOR  TEACHING  LANGUAGE. 

COBBETT'S  ENGLISH  GRAMMAR.  {Price  3^.)— This  is  a 
book  oi principles,  clearly  laid  down  ;  and  when  once  these  are  got 
into  the  mind  they  never  quit  it. 

COBBETT'S  iFRENCH  GRAMMAR  (Price  bs.)  ;  or,  Plain 
Instructions  for  the  Learning  of  French. — Alore  young  men  have,  I 
dare  say,  learned  French  from  it,  than  from  all  the  other  books 
that  have  been  published  in  English  for  the  last  fifty  years. 

MR.  JAMES  COBBETT'S  1 1  ALIAN  GRAMMAR  (Price  6s.)  ; 
or  a  Plain  and  Compendious  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Italian. — 
I  would  pledge  myself  to  take  this  book  and  to  learn  Italian  from 
it  in  three  months. 

2.  DOMESTIC  MANAGEMENT  AND  DUTIES. 

COBBETT'S  COTTAGE  ECONOxMY  (Price  2s.  6d.)  ;  con- 
taining  information  relative  to  the  brewiog  of  Beer,  making  of 
Bread,  keeping-  of  Cows,  Pigs,  Bees,  Ewes,  Goats,  Poultry,  and 
Rabbits,  and  relative  to  other  matters. 

COBBETI  'S  ADVICE  TO  YOUNG  MEN,  and  (incidentally) 
to  Young  fFomeny  in  the  middle  and  higher  Ranks  of  Life  (Price  5*.) 
It  was  published  in  14  numbers,  and  is  now  in  one  vol.  complete. 


Mr.  CohbetCs  List  of  Books.  71 

COBBETT'S  SERMONS  {Price  3s.  6d.)— More  of  these  Sermons 
have  been  sold  than  of  the  Sermons  of  all  the  Church* parsons  put 
together  since  mine  were  published. 

COBBETT'S  EDITION  OF  TULL*S  HUSBANDRY  (Price 
lbs,):  THE  HORSE-HOEING  HUSBANDRY;  or,  A  Theatisb 
on  the  Principles  of  Tillage  and  Vegetation,  wherein  is  taught  a 
Method  of  introducing  a  sort  of  Vineyard  Culture  into  the  Corn* 
Fields,  in  order  to  increase  their  Product  and  diminish  the  com* 
mon  Expense. 

3.  BOOKS  ON  RURAL  AFFAIRS. 

COBBETT'S  YEAR'S  RESIDENCE  IN  AMERICA,  WITH  A 
MAP  {Price  5s,)  A  book  very  necessary  to  all  men  of  property 
who  emigrate  to  the  United  States. 

COBBETT'S  ENGLISH  GARDENER  {Price  6s,)  A  complete 
book  of  the  kind. 

COBBETPS  WOODLANDS  {Price  Us,) ;  or,  A  Treatise  on 
Forest  Trees  and  Underwoodsj  and  the  Manner  of  Collecting,  Pre- 
serving, and  Sowing  of  the  Seed. 

COBBETT'S  CORN-BOOK  {Piice  2s.  6d,)  ;  or,  A  Treatise 
on  Cobbett's  Corn  :  containing  Instructions  for  Propagating  and 
Cultivating  the  Plant,  and  for  Harvesting  and  Preserving  the  Crop; 
and  also  an  Account  of  the  several  Uses  to  which  the  Produce  is 
applied,  with  Minute  Directions  relative  to  each  mode  of  Appli- 
cation,— This  edition  1  sell  at  25.  6d,,  that  it  may  get  into  numerous 
hands, 

4.  MANAGEMENT  OF  NATIONAL  AFFAIRS. 

COBBETT'S  PAPER  AGAINST  GOLD  {Price  bs,)  ;  or,  the 
History  and  Mystery  of  the  Bank  of  England,  of  the  Debt,  of  the 
Stocks,  of  the  Sinking  Fund,  and  of  all  the  other  tricks  and  con- 
trivances carried  on  bv  the  means  of  Paper  Money. 

COBBETPS  RURAL  RIDES.  {Price  bs.)  If  the  members  of 
the  Government  had  read  these  Rides,  only  just  7^ead  them,  last 
year,  when  they  were  collected  and  printed  in  a  volume,  they 
could  not  have  helped  foreseeing  all  the  violences  that  have  now 
taken  place,  and  especially  in  these  very  counties  ;  and  foreseeing 
them,  they  must  have  been  devils  in  reality  if  they  had  not  done 
something  to  prevent  them. 

COBBETT'S  POOR  MAN'S  FRIEND  {Price  M,)-,  or,  a  De- 
fence  of  the  Rights  of  those  who  do  the  Work  and  fight  the  Battles. 
— ^l^his  is  my  favourite  work.  1  bestowed  more  labour  upon  it  than 
upon  any  large  volume  that  I  ever  wrote. 

COBBETT'S  EMIGRANT'S  GUIDE  (2^.  6d.) ;  in  Ten  Letters, 
addressed  to  the  Taxpayers  of  England. 

USURY  LAWS  {Price  2s.  6d.)  ;  or,  Lending  at  Interest; 
also,  the  Exaction  and  Payment  of  certain  Church-fees,  such  as 
Pew-rents,  Burial-fees,  and  the  like,  together  with  forestalling 
Traffic;  all  proved  to  be  repugnant  to  the  Divine  and  Ecclesiasti- 
cal Law^  and  destructive  to  Civil  Society, 


72  Mr,  Cobbetfs  List  of  Books. 

5.  HISTORY. 

COBBETT*S  HISTORY  OF  THE  PROTESTANT  REFOR- 
MATION in  England  and  Ireland  (Price  4s.  6d.)  ;  showing  how 
that  Event  has  impoverished  and  degraded  the  main  Body  of  the 
People  in  those  Countries:  PART  II.  [PHce  3s.  6d.)  ;  contain- 
ing a  List  of  the  Abbeys,  Priories,  Nunneries,  Hospitals,  and  other 
Reh'gious  Foundations,  in  England  and  Wales,  and  in  Ireland, 
confiscated,  seized  on,  or  alienated,  by  the  Protestant  **  Reforma- 
tion,** Sovereigns,  and  Parliaments. 

COBBETT'S  ROMAN  HISIORY,  English  and  French, 
(Price  6s.)  ;  Vol.  I.  from  the  Foundation  of  Rome  to  the  Battle  of 
Actium.  Vol.11.  An  Abridged  History  of  the  Emperors,  in 
French  and  English:  being  a  continuation  of  the  History  of 
THE  RoiMAN  Republic. — This  work  is  intended  as  an  Exercise-book 
to  be  used  with  my  French  Grammar  ;  and  it  is  sold  at  a  very  low 
price^  to  place  it  within  tlie  reach  of  young  men  in  general. 

COBBETT'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  REGENCY  AND  REIGN 
OF  GEORGE  IV. — This  work  is  published  in  Nos.  at  6rf.  each,  and 
shall  do  justice  to  the  late  **  9nild  and  merciful**  King. 

LAFAYETTE'S  LIFE  {Price  Is.)  A  brief  Account  of  the  Life 
of  that  brave  and  honest  man,  translated  from  the  French,  by  Mr. 
James  Cobbett. 

6.  TRAVELS. 

MR.  JOHN  COBBETT'S  LETTERS  FROM  FRANCE  (Price 
As.  6d.) 

MR.  JAMES  COBBETT'S  RIDE  OF  EIGHT  HUNDRED 
MILES  IN  FRANCE  (the  Third  Edition,  Price  2s.  6d.) 

MR.  JAMES  COBBETT'S  TOUR  IN  ITALY,  and  also  in  Part 
of  FRANCE  and  SWITZERLAND  (Price  4s.  6d.) 

7.    LAW. 

COBBETT'S  TRANSLATION  OF  MARTENS'S  LAW  OF 
NATIONS  (Price  I7s.)  ;  being  the  Science  of  National  Law, 
Covenants,  Power,  &c.  Founded  upon  the  Treaties  and  Customs 
of  Modern  Nations  in  Europe. 

MR.  WM.  COBBETT'S  LAW  OF  TURNPIKES    (Price  3s.  6d.) 

8.  MISCELLANEOUS  POLITICS. 

THE  REGISTER,  published  Weekly,  Price  Is.  2d,  Sixty-four 
pages. 

TWO-PENNY  TRASH,  published  monthly,  Price  2d.,  I2s.  3d. 
for  a  hundred,  and  \\s.  a  hundred  if  300  or  upwards. 

This  is  the  Library  that  I  have  created.  It  really  makes  a  tole- 
rable shelf  of  hooks ;  a  man  who  understands  the  contents  of  which 
may  be  deemed  a  man  of  great  information.  In  about  every  one 
of  these  works  I  have  pleaded  the  cause  of  the  working  people,  and 
I  shall  now  see  that  cause  triumph,  in  spite  of  all  that  can  be  done 
to  prevent  it. 

N.  B.  A  whole  set  of  these  books  at  the  above  prices,  amounts  to 
71.  Os.  2d.  ;  but,  if  a  whole  set  be  taken  together,  the  price  is  67. 
And  here  is  a  stock  of  knowledge  sufficient  for  any  young  mau  in 

the  world. 

^Printed  by  Wm.  Cobbett,  Jobnson*3-cottit,  rieet-strect.^J  1 


^ 


No.  IV. 


COBBETT'S 

TWO-PENNY   TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  October,  1830. 


TO 

THE  INDUSTRIOUS  CLASSES  AT  BOTLEY  IN 

HAMPSHIRE. 

On  the  conduct  of  their  rich  neighbours,  and  in  particU" 
lar  of  that  owe  Willis  (who  is  now' called  Fleming), 
and  who  is  one  of  the  Members  of  that  unfortunate 
County. 

'  Kensington,  Septemhei^  30, 1830. 

My  Friends, 

81.  What  I  have  to  say  upon  the  above  subject,  though 

addressed  to  you,  is  of  equal  interest  to  the  working  people 

in  every  part  of  the  country ;  for,  every- where  there  are  to 

be  found  men  of  the  same  description  as  that  of  those  on 

whose  conduct  I  am  about  to  remark,  though,  perhaps,  in 

proportion  to  the  population  of  the  place,  there  are  more  of 

them  to  be  found  at  and  near  Botley  than  in  any  other  part 


London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street, 
and  sold  hy  all  Booksellerst 

£ 


74  Two-penny  Trash; 

of  the  kingdom.  The  great  and  constant  object  of  these 
men  is,  to  get  riches,  to  rake  together  wealth,  by  any  and 
every  means  in  their  power;  and,  one  of  the  means  that  they 
have  constantly  in  use  is,  to  pinch  the  working  people,  and 
to  delude  them  at  the  same  time.  They  do  not  attack  you 
in  the  manner  of  highwaymen  and  housebreakers ;  but  by 
craftiness,  by  cunning  to  surpass  that  of  the  devil  himself. 
These  men  have  always  found  in  me  a  great  enemy.  I  have 
been  at  work  exposing  them  for  thirty  years;  I  have  thwarted 
many  of  their  schemes;  I  have  taught  the  working  people  their 
rights;  I  have  done  all  in  my  power  to  prevent  them  from 
being  oppressed ;  and  for  this  their  oppressors  hate  me  most 
mortally.  They  have  lost  no  opportunity  of  showing  this 
hatred;  and,  upon  a  recent  occasion  they,  in  the  village  of 
Botley  itself,  held  a  sort  of  Jubilee,  or  day  of  rejoicing, 
that  I  was  not  still  upon  the  spot  to  take  your  parts,  and  to 
give  them  trouble. 

82.  This  Jubilee  was  called  a  dinner,  which  it  was 
pretended  that  the  people  of  Botley  gave  to  Willis  (now 
called  Fleming),  who  is  one  of  the  two  who  are  called  mem- 
bers  for  Hampshire,  An  account  of  this  dinner  has  been 
published  ia  a  Southampton  newspaper^  which  has  been 
sent  to  me  by  friends  from  several  parts  of  the  county.  As 
to  the  particular  men  who  figured  upon  this  occasion,  they 
would  be  wholly  unworthy  of  this  public  notice ;  but,  they 
are  only  a  sample  of  the  whole  sack  of  fellows  of  the  same 
'  description,  who  are,  as  I  said  before,  to  be  found  in  all  parts 
of  the  country.  But,  what  induces  me,  at  this  time,  to 
bestow  this  notice  upon  them  is  this:  that  they  took  this 
occasion  to  put  forth  their  infamous  principles  relative  to 
several  matters  in  which  you  are  deeply  interested,  par- 
ticularly wdth  regard  to  the  Corn  Laws,  and  to  the  means 
oi providing  for  the  poor.  These  are  two  very  important 
subjects,  and  what  these  greedy  fellows  said  relative  to  them 


1st  October,  1830.  ,    75 

is  worthy  of  your  best  attention.  These  worthless  and 
greedy  fellows  abused  and  belied  me ;  but,  it  is  what  they 
fcaid  upon  these  subjects  that  is  particularly  worthy  of  your 
attention ;  and  I  am  about  to  show  you  how  you  are  inte- 
rested in  these  matters.  You  have  suffered  hunger  and 
cold  long  enough ;  it  is  time  that  you  cease  to  suffer  them  ; 
you  do  the  work ;  you  raise  the  food  and  the  clothing  and 
the  fuel ;  and  it  is  time  that  you  had  your  share  of  them  ; 
or,  at  least,  more  of  them  than  you  now  have ;  but  this 
these  greedy  fellows  mean  that  you  shall  not  have,  if  they 
can  keep  it  from  you,  either  by  open  force  or  by  deceiv- 
ing you.,^ 

83.  They  begin  to  be  alarmed :  they  begin  to  fear  that 
they  must  let  go  their  grasp ;  they  have  seen  what  the  work' 
ing  people  in  France  have  done  ;  and  they  fear,  that  the 
example  may  be  catching.     Hence  their  incessant  endea- 
vours to  deceive  you,  being  well  aware,  that,  if  it  come  to 
open  force,  you  will  beat  them.     One  of  their  means  is,  to 
make  you  believe,   that  those  who  defend  your  rights  are 
your  enemies;   and   that  they  are  disloyal  and  seditious 
men,  and  that  you  ought  to  hate  them  instead  of  respecting 
them.     You  know  that,  once  upon  a  time,  the  Wolves, 
when  they  wanted  to  devour  the  Sheep,  could  not  do  it,  be- 
cause the  fold  was  defended  by  a  strong  and  watchful 
Dog.    The  wolves,  being  as  cowardly  as  they  were  greedy, 
and  as  cunning  as    they  were  cowardly,  told   the  sheep, 
that  they  might  live  in  harmony  together,  if  it  were  not 
for  that  surly,  ill-tempered,  aifid  barking  dog;  and  that,  if 
the  sheep  would  but  tell  the   dog  to  go  about  his  business, 
and  let  them  take  care  of  themselves,  they  would  never  again 
have  any   cause  ^r  fear  or  uneasiness.     The  silly  sheep 
(and  ungrateful  as  well  as  silly)  began  to  abuse  the  dog, 
and  told  him  that  they  did  not  want  him ;  and  he,  justly 
offended  at  their  baseness,  walked  off  and  left  them  to  the 

e2 


76  Two-penny  Tra&h; 

mercy  of  their  new  friends.  The  moment  he  was  safely  out 
of  sight  and  out  of  hearing,  in  jumped  the  wolves,  and  tore 
the  sheep  to  pieces,  killed  and  devoured  the  whole,  Iambs 
and  all ! 

84.  The  fellows  at  this  dinner  are  the  wolves;  you  are 
the  sheep ;  and  their  object  is  to  prevail  on  you  to  act  aa 
ungrateful  part  towards  me,  that  they  may  devour  you, 
flesh,  skin,  bones,  blood  and  all,  and  even  your  hair  into  the 
bargain.  But,  now  let  us  hear  what  they  said  upon  this  oc- 
casion. I  have  great  reluctance  to  fill  my  paper  with  their 
rubbish ;  but  it  is  but  fair  that  you  have  to  read  what  they 
said  ;  and  besides,  it  will  be  useful  to  you  and  to  me  also  to 
be  able  to  look  back  now  and  then,  in  time  to  come,  at  this 
proof  of  their  incomparable  baseness.  One  Jar  vis  was,  it 
appears,  their  chairman^  and  he  seems  to  be  a  captain  of 
some  sort ;  that  is  to  say,  a  fellow  that  lives  on  the  taxes 
that  are  drawn  out  of  your  sweat.  No  wonder  that  he  hates 
dhe  sheep-dog.  Willis  (now  called  Fleming)  was  the 
'  chief  orator.  There  were  others,  who,  though  they  do  not 
seem  to  have  howled  out  loud,  were  equally  base  with  the 
"wolves  that  howled  ;  and,  indeed,  rather  more  base,  if  that 
-"be  possible ;  for,  while  they  kept  in  the  drove,^  and  backed 
the  others  on,  they  thought  that,  by  their  silence,  they 
^should  escape  the  punishment  to  which  the  howling  wolves 
would  be  exposed ;  and  that,  thus,  they  w^ould  be  able  to  go 
on  devouring  unchecked. 

S5,  But,  now,  pray  read  the  whole  of  what  they  said. 
There  can  be  no  doubt,  that  they  sent  the  account  of  it  to 
the  newspapers  themselves ;  for  all  such  fellows,  cunning 
as  they  are  in  other  respects,  are  eager  to  see  their  names 
in  print ;  and,  though  they  would  hardly  spend  a  penny  to 
pay  for  bringing  their  wives  a  bed,  they  will  squeeze  out 
a  few  shillings  to  hire  a  dirty  newspaper  fellow  to  stick  up 
their  names  in  his  beggarly  paragraphs,  and  to  abuse  those 


1st  October,  1830.  77 

whom  they  look  upon  as  the  friends  of  the  working  people. 
The  poor  wretch,  who  publishes  this  newspaper,  does  not 
know  me ;  perhaps,  on  public  grounds,  he  respects  me  and 
abhors  them^  but  they  gave  him  money,  and  I  did  not; 
money  he  wanted  to  buy  him  shoes,  and  shirts,  and  victuals  ; 
and,  therefore,  he  abused  me  and  praised  them.  If  I  would 
have  given  him  a  pair  of  shoes,  a  pound  of  bacon,  or  a  loaf 
of  bread,  more  than  they  gave  him,  the  poor  lazy  sooty 
wretch  would  have  praised  me  and  abused  them.  However, 
I  must  reserve  further  remarks,  lintil  you  have  heard  what 
the  stupid  and  base  creatures  said  at  the  dinner.  Pray 
read  it  all  through  with  attention ;  and  look  particularly  at 
the  words  that  are  printed  in  the  sort  of  letter  that  these 
words  are  printed  in.  The  following  is  the  account,  taken 
from  the  Southampton  beggarman's  newspaper. 

Botley,  Sept,  11. 
DINNER  TO  MR.  FLEMING. 

Several  of  the  towns  of  this  county  have  expressed  their  attach- 
ment to  our  worthy  and  long- established  Member,  Mr.  Fleming-, 
by  giving  him  public  dinners.  We  are  led  to  point  to  the  circum- 
stance by  what  will  appear  to  those  who  are  acquainted  with  Mr. 
Fleming's  political  principles  an  astonishing  fact — his  being  last 
vreek  invited  to  dine  in  CobhetCs  radical  nest,  Botley.  It  has  been 
asked,  if  the  honourable  Member  is  about  to  become  a  convert  ? 
but  his  speech,  which  will  be  seen  below,  fully  answers  the  ques- 
tion. We  regret  we  have  not  room  to  give  the  whole  of  the  speeches 
of  the  many  respectable  gentlemen  who  delivered  their  sentiments. 
They,  however,  fully  show  that  Cobhett  and  radicalism  are  out  of 
fashion  at  Botley ;  and  Fleming,  rational  liberty,  and  constitutional 
independence,  the  objects  of  their  present  attachment. 

On  Thursday  last,  the  freeholders  and  friends  of  Mr.  Fleming, 
resident  in  Botley  and  its  neighbourhood,  including  several  from 
Southampton  and  Bishop's  Waltham,  partook  of  a  most  sumptuous 
dinner,  at  the  Dolphin  Inn,  Botley,  to  celebrate  the  recent  re-elec- 
tion of  that  gentleman  as  a  Member  for  the  County,  upon  which 
occasion  Samuel  Raymond  Jarvis,  Esq,  presided.  There  were 
about  forty  gentlemen  present;  and,  after  dinner,  which  consisted 
of  venison,  game,  fish,  and  every  delicacy  that  could  he  procured, 
the  worthy  chairman  gave,  in  succession,  **  The  King,'*  "  The 
Queen  and  Royal  Family,"  and  **  The  Duke  of  Wellington  and  his 
Majesty's  Ministers,"  which  were  severally  drunk  with  much  ap- 
plause.    Captain  Jarvis  next  rose  to  propose  the  health  of  Mr. 


78  Two-penny  Trash; 

Fleming,  and  in  doing:  so,  remarked  that  it  was  with  a  feeling  of 
great  gratificatiou  he  hailed  such  a  meeting;  and  that  iu  offering 
to  the  world  their  feelings  in  support  of  the  worthy  Member,  they 
should  retrieve  from  Botley  that  imputation  which  it  hud  long  e»-» 
duredy  of  disloyalty  and  radicalism.  He  then  adverted  to  the  late 
election,  the  circumstances  attending  which  he  said  must  be  fresh 
in  the  recollection  of  all  present,  and  remarked,  that  it  must  be 
felt  that  the  County  was  insulted  by  the  ungenerous  conduct  there 
displayed.  Every  man,  he  observed,  in  this  country  had  a  right  to 
enjoy  his  own  political  feeling,  but  let  no  one  attack  a  man  like 
the  worthy  gentleman,  Mr.  Fleming,  whose  private  character  was 
unblemished,  and  whose  public  conduct  would  bear  the  strictest 
investigation.  The  gallant  chairman,  after  many  other  observa- 
tions, concluded  a  speech,  which  was  much  applauded,  by  proposing 
the  health  of  Mr.  Fleming,  which  was  drunk  with  the  most  rap- 
turous  approbation f  amid  deafening  cheers,— Mr.  Fleming  returned 
thanks  as  follows: — 

*^  Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  :— The  honourable  and  distin- 
guished reception  I  have  experienced  here  to-day,  and  the  \evy 
warm  and  gratifying  manner  in  which  you  have   honoured  the? 
toast,  proposed  with  so  much  ability,  and  in  terms  so  flattering,  by 
our  excellent  chairman,  call  for  acknowledgments  and  gratitude 
far  beyond  my  power  of  expression  ;  I  trust,  however,  you  will  not 
think  I  am  the  less  sensible  of  your  kindness,  or  regardless  of  the 
value  of  testimony  such  as  yours,  in  approval  of  my  public  prin- 
ciples and  conduct.    It  is  my  highest  honour  to  have  been  thought 
worthy  of  your  support  upon  the  late  occasion,  and  1  shall  ever 
remember  with  feelings  of  grateful  satisfaction,  the  unprecedented 
expressions  of  good-will  which  greeted  me  from  all  parts  of  the 
county,  and  which,  had  ray  opponents  dared  to  have  risked  a  poll, 
would  speedily  have  exposed   their  weakness,  and  shown  how 
utterly  they  are  despised  by  the  enlightened  and  respectable  free*' 
holders  of  this  county.    Gentlemen,  I  will  not  waste  your  time  by 
noticing  the  unjust  and  unfounded  aspersions  of  my  opponents; 
my  public  conduct  is  known  to  you  as  well  as  to  them,  and  1  fear- 
lessly call  upon  you  to  declare,  if  it  has  been  not  uniformly  straight* 
forward,  consistent,  and  independent  ?     It  is  unnecessary  to  reiTiind 
you  of  my  first  appeal  for  your  favour  upon  the  retirement  of  the 
late  Sir  Thomas  Heathcote,  when,  without  any  previous  comihu- 
nication  of  my  intentions,  without  the  promise  of  support  from  any 
of  the  principal  interests  in  our  county,  I  boldly  canvassed  the 
freeholders  as  an  independent  gentleman,  and  asked  them  to  place 
me  in  that  high  and   honourable  station  which  was   held  by  my 
ancestor  as  far  back  as  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  relying  for 
success  solely  upon  the  reputation  of  my  private  character,  and 
those  constitutional  principles  supported  by  my  family  for  centuries 
in  this  county.     Did  this  show  a  want  of  independent  feelings  7    Or 
bas  my  conduct  since,  as  your  representative,  upon  the  numerous 
occasions  in  which  I  have  opposed  the  Government,  shown  a  sub- 
serviency  to  the  will  of  a  Minister,  or  a  disposition  to  support 
measures  which  I  considered  injurious  to  the  interests  of  my  coun- 


4 


1st  October,  1830,  79 

try?     I  need  not  instance  my  votes  upon  the  great  constitutional 
measures  enacted  by  the  last  Parliament,  which  I  firmly  opposed, 
in  conformity  with  the  pledges  I  had  here  given  to  my  constituents. 
It  is  unnecessary   to  notice   my   determined    resistance   to  those 
measures  of  Free  Trade  and  CornLawSy  which,  by  the  introduction 
of  the   untaxed  pi^oduce  of  foreigners ^  have  injured    the  landed 
interests^  impoverished  the  British  farmer,  depressed  the  wages  of 
the  labouring  poor y  and  spread  misery,  discontent,  and  ruin,  from 
one  end  of  the  kingdom  to  the  other.    Gentlenaen,  I  have  ever 
opposed  those  measures,  and  will  continue  to  do  so,  by  whatsoever 
government  they  may  be  proposed ;  and  1  lament  that  the  present 
Government,   in  other  particulars  so  deserving  your  confidence, 
should  have  been  induced  in  any  degree  to  sanction   and  adopt, 
them.     But,  Gentlemen,  it  is  not  any  supposed  want  of  indepen* 
dence  which  has  excited  the  enmity  of  my  opponents,  but  my  k no wa 
constitutional  principles,  and  zealous  support  to  our  beloved  insti- 
tutions, in  opposition  to  the  dangerous  and  destructive  innovations 
they  would  introduce.     The  loyal  and  constitutional  principles  of 
the  respectable  friends  I  see  around  me,  are  sufficiently  well  known, 
and  duly  appreciated,  in   this  neighbourhood  ;   but  1  confess  it  is 
especially  gratifying  to  me,  that  the  more  distant  parts  of  your 
county   will  learn  from  our  proceedings  to-day,  that  my  public 
principles  are  approved  by  the  inhabitants  of  this  town  and  neigh- 
bourhood, where  the  wild  doctrines  of  my  opponents  have  been  so 
widely  disseminated,  and  were  formerly  recommended  with  a  degree 
of  talent  and  ability  well  worthy  a  better  cause.     The  residence  of 
these  characters  amongst  you,  has  enabled  you,  better  than  others, 
to  ascertain  that  those  who  write  and  talk  fluently  of  freedom^ 
liberality y  and  justice,  can  be  the  most  overbearing ,  illiberaly  and 
oppressive  to  their  miserable  dependents.     What  benefits,  let  me 
ask,  have  the  poor  of  this  parish  and  neighbourhood  derived  from 
the  residence  of  these  pretended  patriots  and  philanthropists  ?     Has 
not  their  system  been,  here  and  every-where  else,  to  keep  them  ia 
a  state  of  abject  poverty  and  dependence,  that  they  may  more  readily 
excite  their  discontent,  and  render  them  the  deluded  instruments 
of  their  wicked  and  destructive  machinations  ?     For   what  other 
purpose  was  the  cry  for  cheap  bread  so  artfully  excited?  which  has 
been  followed  by  want  of  employment,  low  wages,  and  increased 
poor's  rates.     For  what  other  purpose  have  prejudices   been  so 
industriously  created  in  opposition  to  the  savings  banks,  and  that 
imiproved  system  of  friendly  societies,  which,  above  all  others,   is 
calculated  to  arrest  the  progress  of  pauperism,  render  our  popula- 
tion respectable  and  independent,  bless  their  old  age  with  comfort; 
and  competence,  and  save  their  declining  years  from  the  misery 
and  degradation  of  a  poor-house  !  To  effect  this  has  been  the  wish, 
nearest  my  heart,  and  the  object  of  my  unceasing  endeavours;  and^ 
should  I  be  the  humble  instrument  of  promoting  it  in  any  degree, 
I  shall  best  prove  myself  worthy  of  your  support,  and  best  testify 
Hiy  gratitude  for  your  favours.     In  other  particulars,  Gentlemen, 
I  shall  continue  to  pursue  that  line   of  public  conduct  which  has 
bitherto  been  sanctioned   with  your  gratifying  approval  j  and,  ia 


80  Two-PE^KY  Trash; 

defiance  of  the  taunts  of  my  opponents,  will  continue  to  support  the 
present  Government  as  long  as  they  continue  to  deserve  your  con- 
idence  by  preserving  their  present  liberal  policy — by  practising 
every  possible  economy  in  the  expenditure,  and  by  effecting  every 
possible  reduction  of  taxation.  J^ut,  for  the  sake  o(  par fp  purposes, 
or  to  obtain  a  portion -of  undeserved  popularity,  1  will  not  "require 
them  to  pursue  that  system  further  than  is  consistent  with  the 
safety  and  service  of  the  state,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  national 
honour  and  good  faith.  Gentlemen,  1  will  not  detain  you  longer  r 
these  are  my  public  principles,  and  such  as,  I  trust,  become  the  re- 
presentative of  a  free  and  enlightened  people." 

Mr  Fleming  was  much  cheered  during  his  address,  and  loudly 
applauded  at  its  termination. 

In  the  course  of  the  evening  the  following  toasts  were  given, 
which  elicited  much  approbation,  and  called  forth  several   neat 
speeches  from  some  of  the  gentlemen  present — **  R.  Pollen,  Esq.'* 
*'  Walter  Long,  Esq."  **The  Professional  Gentlemen  of  the  county 
■who  so   handsomely   tendered   their   gratuitous   services   to  Mr. 
fleming."  *^  Sir  VV.*Heathcote,  Bart."   *«  Mr.  Fleming,  jun.**  who 
"was  present,  and  returned  thanks  in  a  very  feelinp  and  energetia 
manner,  considering  his  youthful  age — *^  Mrs.  Fleming  and  fa- 
mily.'* *'  Captains  Adams  andCollard."  ^^  Happiness  and  Prosperity 
to  the  inhabitants  of  Botley.'*  "  The  Freeholders  and  Visitors  from* 
Southampton   and  Bishop's  Waltham."     "  Sir  J.  W.  Pollen,  Bart, 
and  the  South  Hants  Militia,"   &c.  &c.    The  dinner  was  uncom- 
monly well  served  by  Mr.  Gale,  the  dessert  was  most  splendid,  and' 
the  wines  gave  the  highest  satisfaction.     The  exertions  of  the  wor- 
thy chairman,  as  well  as  of  the  VICE-PRESIDENT,  Mr.  J.  War- 
:ner,  jun.,  added  much  to  the  hilarity  of  the  meetiui^,  which  may- 
be justly  said  to  have  been  of  the  most  joyous  description,  and  to 
Lave  given  umnixed  delight  to  all  present* 

^^.  To  begin  with  the  beggar  news-man  of  Southampton, 
he  calls  Botley."  CobbetVs  Radical  nest"  Now  what  is 
radical^  There  is  no  harm  in  the  word;  and  what  is  the 
thing  ?  Radical  means  a  thing  going  to  the  root.  When 
we  talk  of  going  to  the  root  of  an  evil,  we  mean,  going  to 
the  bottom  of  it,  and,  if  we  talk  of  a  thorough  cure,  we  call 
it  a  radical  one.  We  all  know,  that  the  country  is  in 
great  misery,  compared  to  what  it  used  to  be :  even  this  very 
Willis*  says  it  is.  I  am  one  of  those  who  say,  that  the 
misery  arises  from  the  want  of  a  reform  of  the  parliament; 
and  such  a  reform  as  shall  give  a  vote  to  every  man,  poor 
as  well  as  rich;  because  every  man  is  compelled  to  serve  in 
the  militia^  every  man  is  compelled  to  pay  taxes^  and. 


1st  October,  1830.  81 

therefore,  every  man  has  a  right  to  vote  at  elections  to 
choose  those  who.  are  to  lay  on  the  taxes.  This  we  call 
going  to  the  root  of  the  misery ;  for,  assuredly,  if  every  man 
had  a  vote,  the  men  whom  they  would  choose  would  not 
make  the  labourer  pay  ten  times  as  much  tax  on  beer  as  the 
lord  pays  on  his  wine.  This  is  going  to  the  root ;  this  is 
being  a  radical;  and,  if  Botley  be  not  still  a  radical  nesty 
you  must  be  out  of  your  senses ;  you  must  think  it  right  that 
the  Gras PALLS  should  get  away,  one  by  one,  all  your  gar- 
dens and  cottages,  leave  you  not  a  blade  of  grass  even  for  a 
goose  to  eat,  sweat  the  last  drop  of  blood  out  of  you,  cram 
you,  at  last,  to  die  in  the  poor-house,  and  then  put  you  into 
the  ground  like  a  dog,  calling  the  devil  to  come,  and,  with 
his  prayers,  insult  your  dead  body.  You  do  not  think  that 
this  is  right,  and  therefore,  in  spite  of  Willis,  Jarvis,  and  the 
Graspalls,  you  are  still  radicals.  The  winter  before  last, 
the  House  of  Commons,  of  which  this  Willis  Fleming 
was  owe,  passed'  a  law  to  enable  the  overseers  TO  SELL 
THE  DEAD  BODIES  OF  THE  POOR.  I  petitioned 
against  that  bill  in  the  House  of  Lords ;  the  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don (who,  by-the-bye,  once  drank  tea  at  my  house  at  Botley) 
presented  my  petition,  and  the  bill  was  thrown  out  by  the 
Lords ;  and,  if  it  had  not  been  for  that,  your  overseers  would 
DOW,  I  dare  say,  have  been  selling  some  of  the  dead  bodies 
of  your  wives,  parents,  or  children ;  that  is  to  say,  if  you 
would  have  let  them  do  it^  which  I  am  very  sure  you  would 
not.  If  the  poor  had  votes  as  well  as  the  rich,  members  of 
parliament  would  not  pass  laws  to  sell  the  dead  bodies  of 
the  poor.  Now,  I  want  the  poor  to  have  votes  as  well  as 
the  rich ;  I  want  to  go  to  the  root  of  the  evil ;  I  want  your 
dead  bodies  not  to  be  sold  by  the  overseers ;  and  it  is  for 
this  that  Willis  and  his  friends  the  Graspalls  call  on  you  to 
hate  me.  The  next  time  Willis  comes  to  Botley,  call  out 
to  him,  *^  Who  voted  for  the  law  to  enable  the  overseers  to 

£  5 


^2  Two-penny  Trash; 

"  sell  the  dead  bodies  df  the  poor  V     See  how  he  will  look  ; 
hear  what  answer  he  will  give   to  that.      Aye,  and  the 
Graspalls  are  very  little  better ;  for  they  know  all  about 
that  law ;  they  know  that  he  voted  for  it :  and  they  support 
him,  praise  him,  and  stand  like  bullies  at  his  back,  while 
he  calumniates  me,  who  petitioned  against  that  law,  and 
who,  in  fact,  prevented  it  from  being  passed  in  the  House 
of  Lords.     In  short,  a  radical  is  a  man  that  is  against  a 
law  for  selling  the  dead  bodies  of  the  poor  to  be  cut  up  by 
surgeons;  that  is  a  ra(i^ca/,  and  Willis  and  Jarvis  and 
the  Graspalls  hate  radicals.     The  whole  crew  that  were 
assembled  along  with  Jarvis   and  the  Graspalls  knew, 
mind  you,  about  this  dead-body  bill,  which  I  will  insert  in 
the  next  Number  of  this   little   book.     They  knew,  that 
Willis  was  a  member  of  the  House  that  passed  the  bill ; 
they  knew  that  he  voted  for  it,  either  expressly  or  tacitly; 
and  yet  the  base  crew  at  the  dinner  ^^  drank  his  health  "with 
rapturous  applause  /"     And  so  they  would  the  health  of 
the  king  of  hell,  if  he  would  come  up  and  help  them  to 
oppress  the  poor. 

87.  We  now  come  to  the  speech  of  Willis  (called 
Fleming)  :  and  here  I  beg  you  to  pay  particular  attention  to 
what  this,  at  once,  stupid  and  conceited  fellow  said  about 
the  Corn  Bill,  and  about  Savings  Banks,  and  Friendly 
Societies.  It  is  curious  to  observe,  how  noisy  this  fellow 
was  at  a  village  tavern,  when  he  never  yet,  that  I  have 
heard  of,  opened  his  jaws  in  the  Parliament,  except  just  to 
say  AYE,  or  no ;  just  to  give  his  vote,  which  he  has  al- 
ways done  on  the  side  of  those  who  have  the  collecting  and 
the  expending  of  the  taxes.  But,  to  come  back  to  his  Botley- 
speech ;  I  will,  before  I  notice  what  he  said  about  the  Corn 
Bill,  the  Savings  Banks;  and  the  Friendly  Societies,  notice 
what  he  said  in  allusion  TO  ME,  and  what  the  Grasp- 
alls, young  as  well  as  old,  had  the  incomparable  base- 


1st  October,  1830.  83 

ness,  not  merely  to  sit  and  hear  in  silence,  but  to  "  cheer  and 
loudly  applaud.'*  I  have  seen,  and  have  heard,  and  read 
of  much  baseness  in  my  life-time;  but,  all  things  considered, 
baseness  equal  to  that  of  these  Graspalls  I  never  before 
saw,  or  heard  of,  or  read  of.  Look  again,  my  friends,  at  the 
part  of  the  speech  where  he  alludes  to  me ;  where  he  calls 
me  an  oppressor  of  the  poor ;  where  he  says,  that  my  re'* 
sidence  amongst  you  tended  to  keep  you  in  a  state  of  ab-* 
ject  dependence.  Read  that  passage  over  once  more,  and 
if  you  can,  stifle  your  indignation  at  the  base  lies;  but,  ta 
stifle  your  indignation  against  the  Graspalls,  who  cheered 
and  applauded  him,  is,  I  am  sure,  impossible. 

88.  It  is  not  agreeable  to  put  forth  one's  own  good  deeds^ 
and,  if  this  were  to  be  read  only  by  the  people  of  Botley  and 
the  neighbourhood,  I  need  not  contradict  this  Willis  Flem- 
ing, this  man,  silent  in  the  senate  and  loud  in  the  tavern  ; 
but,  what  I  address  to  you  is  to  be  read  all  over  the  country, 
and  in  many  parts  where  the  people  have  never  known  any- 
thing of  my  conduct  towards  the  persons  that  were  in  my 
employ,  and  towards  the  labouring  people  of  the  neighbour* 
hood ;  and  this  being  the  case,  it  is  necessary  that  I  state  a 
few  facts,  which  will  enable  the  world  to  judge  of  this  my 
conduct.  Some  of  you  too  who  are  young  may  not  have 
heard  of  that  conduct;  and,  therefore,  this  statement  is  ne- 
cessary.    For  these  reasons  I  state  the  following  facts ; 

1.  That  I  made  it  a  rule,  that  no  man  that  worked  regu- 
larly for  me,  should,  during  his  being  employed  by  me,  be  a 
pauper y  that  is,  receive  parish  relief  I  paid  my  men,  how- 
ever large  their  families,  enough  to  maintain  them  well. 
Most  of  them  lived  in  my  own  cottages,  and  rent  free,  with 
plenty  of  fuel  carried  to  their  doors,  each  having  an  ovefi 
to  bake  in,  I  paid  them,  besides  this,  on  an  average,  two 
shillings  a  week  more  than  other  farmers  paid  their  men. 
There  was  one  exception  as  to  parish  relief,  that  of  Reuben* 


84  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

Pink,  who  belonged  to  Titchfield  parish,  and  whom  I  al* 
lowed  to  get  from  the  parish  what  they  chose  to  give  him, 
and  that  parish  behaved  very  w^ell  in  this  case.  He  had  a 
very  large  family  of  small  children,  and,  in  spite  of  high, 
wages,  free  house,  fuel,  and  a  really  humane  parish,  he  was 
still  poor,  ragged,  and,  in  the  winter  of  1815,  fell  ill.  I  sent 
Dr.  Blundell  to  him,  and  when  he  came  back,  and  I 
asked  what  ailed  him,  '^  Why,"  said  the  sensible  Doctor, 
*'  he  wants  good  victuals  and  warm  clothes,  and  a  good 
deal  of  both,  for  he  is  a  big  man^  I  made  him,  as  soott 
as  a  little  better,  come  with  his  plough  and  horses  (which, 
he  used  better  than  any  man  that  I  ever  saw  in  my  life), 
and  go  to  plough  near  my  own  house,  where  he  came  in 
every  day  at  dinner-time  and  took  the  physic  prescribed  by 
the  doctor,  I  giving  him,  at  the  same  time,  some  of  my 
clothes,  and  particularly  a  great-coat,  which  I  had  worn 
very  little.  The  doctor's  prescription  was  completely  suc- 
cessful ;  and  he  remembers  how  soon  his  patient  recovered. 
But  this  was  my,  I  should  say  our,  constant  practice  with 
all  of  them,  or  their  wives  and  families,  when  they  were  ilL 
With  this  one  exception,  no  man  was  a  pauper  that  worked 
for  me,  though  in  the  three  parishes  of  Botley,  Waltham, 
and  Doxford,  I  paid,  in  the  years  that  I  lived  there,  not  less 
than  about  tivo  thousand  pounds  in  rates.  While  other 
farmers  were  paying  wages  out  of  my  rates,  my  people  were 
receiving  none.  I  saw  how  unjust  this  was  towards  me; 
but,  at  any  rate,  I  was  resolved,  that  the  man  who  laboured 
for  me  should  not  be  degraded  by  the  name  of  pauper^ 
These  facts  are  notorious;  you  all  know  them ;  and  yet  the 
Graspalls  had  the  baseness  to  cheer  and  applaud  the 
empty-headed  Willis  Fleming,  while  he  was  representing 
me  as  an  *'  oppressor  of  my  miserable  dependents  /'' 
These  wretches,  these  greedy,  grinding,  all-grasping  vaga- 
bonds, ought  to  have  been  stricken  dead  upon  the  spot;  and; 


1st  October,  1830.  85 

safe  as  they  tbink  themselves  now,  heavy  as  are  their  bags, 
fast  as  is  their  hold  on  the  property  of  unfortunate  people, 
they  ai"e  not  beyond  the  reach  of  God's  judgments  on  the 
robbers  of  the  poor ;  and  I,  even  I,  shall  yet  see  them  pu- 
nished for  their  monstrous  extortions,  which  are  really  in- 
credible. 

2.  I  found,  living  in  two  cottages,  on  the  farm  of  Fair- 
thorn,  a  widow  and  her  daughters,  and  an  old  man  and  his 
wife.  I  let  the  widow  remain  rent  free,  and  gave  her  wood 
to  burn,  as  long  as  I  had  the  farm .  The  old  man  paid  me  no 
rent ;  when  he  died  I  had  a  head-stone  put  to  his  grave  to 
record,  that  he  had  been  an  honest,  skilful,  and  industrious 
labouring  man  ;  and  I  gave  his  widow  a  shilling  a  week  as 
long  as  I  was  at  Botley.  And  yet  the  vile  extortioners 
cheered  and  applauded  Willis  while  he  was  representing 
me  as  illiberal  and  oppressive  to  dependents  ! 

3.  My  people,  though  never  hired  but  by  the  week^  lived 
''with  me  for  years;  and,  indeed,  no  man  that  I  recollect, 

ever  quitted  me  by  choice.  Robinson,  you  know,  was  my 
gardener  for  years;  Bob  Hammond,  who  worked  for  me 
occasionally,  has  come  up,  three  summers,  to  work  for  me 
at  Kensington ;  Mr.  Dean,  who  became  my  bailiflf,  lived 
in  one  of  my  cottages  as  long  as  the  cottage  was  mine,  has 
since  kept  my  shop  in  London,  is  now  a  neWsman  in  Lon- 
don, was  with  me  through  my  tour  in  the  counties  last 
spring,  is,  this  very  day^  managing  my  affairs  at  Barn- Elm 
in  Surrey,  and  is  become,  as  you  know,  a  man  of  consider- 
able property,  which,  as  I  know,  is  the  just  reward  of  his 
industry  and  fidelity.  These  facts  are  undeniable  and  no- 
I  torious ;  and  yet  the  all-grasping ,  the  extortioning  vaga-^ 
ionds,  sat  and  cheered  and  applauded  the  stupid  and 
malignant  fellow,  while  he  was  calling  me  an  ^'oppressor 
^f  '^y  rniserable  dependents,*^ 

4.  And,  as  to  the  people  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Botley, 


86  Two-PENxy  Trash; 

what  have  I  not  done  and  attempted  to  do,  in  order  to  pre- 
sent them  from  being  robbed  of  the  blades  of  grass  for  their 
pigs  and  their  geese  ?  In  1805,  the  moment  I  went  to  Botley, 
I  wrote  a  memorial  to  Mr.  Windham,  on  the  state  of  Hortqk 
Heath,  and  showed  how  injurious  it  would  be  to  enclose 
that  common.  He  showed  my  memorial ;  but,  at  last,  the 
greedy  graspers  have  prevailed,  and  that  common,  the  out- 
let to  so  many  cottages,  is  enclosed^  to  the  ruin  and  degra- 
dation of  the  cottagers.  In  1827  a  more  ruinous  measure 
was  attempted;  I  mean  the  enclosure  of  Waltham 
Chase,  studded  rovmd  with  cottages,  and  covered  with  the 
cows,  pigs,  and  geese  of  the  cottagers,  who  also  get  fuel 
from  the  heath,  the  turf  and  the  dead  wood.  The  graspers 
fixed  their  eyes  on  this  spot:  the  labourers  were  too  well  off; 
they  had  pigs  and  geese,  and  some  of  them  cows,  and  evea 
asses  or  little  forest  horses  !  This  was  too  much  for  the 
graspers  to  endure.  They  made  a  bargain  with  the  Bishop, 
who  was  lord  of  the  manor ;  their  attorney  was  set  to  work; 
an  enclosure-bill  was  prepared ;  and  the  rights  of  the  pocr  of 
the  See  of  Winchester,  and  of  the  Crown,  were  all  to  be  sa- 
crificed to  the  greediness  of  the  graspers.  Their  attorney  came 
up  with  the  bill  to  get  passed  ;  and,  in  spite  of  the  laudable 
and  able  efforts  of  Mr.  Richard  Hinxman,  the  bill 
actually  passed  that  precious  House  of  which  Willis  Flem^ 
ing  is  a  member.  But,  before  the  bill  got  to  the  House  of 
Lords,  I,  who  had  heard  of  this  cruel  grasping  scheme, 
wrote  a  memorial  on  the  subject,  showing  how  injurious 
the  measure  would  be  to  numerous  families  of  labouring 
people;  this  memorial  I  sent  to  a  ministerial  member 
of  parliament,  whom  I  knew  to  be  a  humane  man ;  he 
communicated  the  information  to  the  Committee  of  the 
Lords*;  the  bill  was  thrown  out;  the  poor  people  were 
saved,  and  the  greedy  fellows  and  their  attorney  had  to 
dink  home  like    sheep-biting,  dogs  that  have  been   met 


1st  October,  1830.  87 

by  a  shepherd  with  a  gun  in  his  hand.     Now,  your  ever-* 
lasting  gratitude  is  due  tp  Mr.  Overington  and   Mr. 
Richard  Hinxman  for  their  exertions  on  this  occasion  ; 
and,  indeed,  my  memorial  might  possibly  have  no  efifect; 
the  whole  of  the  merit  might  be  due  to  those  two  spirited 
and  worthy  gentlemen ;  but,  I  did  my  best,  at  any  rate ;  and 
this  the  graspers  hiow ;  and  for  this,  amongst  other  tlnngs, 
they  hate  me,  and,  as  this  was  my  last  offence  against  them, 
it  had,  perhaps,  the  greatest  weight.     This  was  a  cruel  dis- 
appointment to  them  and  their  attorney;    they  had  sub- 
scribed money  to  pay  him,  and  to  carry  the  job  through  ; 
they  were  calculating  how  much  more  land  they  should 
have  than  they  had  before ;  they  were  counting  their  gains 
over  and  over  again.     You  have  heard  or  read  of  the  man 
who  sold  the  lion's  skin  before  he  had  caught  the  lion  ;  and 
sortie  of  those  greedy  fellows  had  actually  sold  their  share 
of  the  chase  before  they  came  to  London  to  get  the  law  to 
enclose  it !     Judge  you  of  their  mortification  !     You  have, 
sometimes,  seen  a  dog  when  about  to  seize  hold  of  a  piece 
of  meat,  or  to  run  his  mouth  into  a  luncheon-bag,  and,  just 
at  that  moment,  getting  a  blow  across  the  nose  with  a  broom- 
stick.   You  have  seen  the  greedy  robber  shake  his  ears,  and  go 
jogging  off  with  his  tail  between  his  legs.    You  have  seen  an 
egg -sucking  cur,  when  an  egg-shell  filled  with  hot  coals  has 
been  crammed  into  his  mouth ;  and  you  have  seen  him  twist 
his  jaws  about,  and  stare  like  mad.     Like  these  curs  were 
the  GRASPERS,  when  the  House  of  Lords  refused  to  give 
them  the  power  of  robbing  the  poor  of  Waltham  Chase  of 
the  last  blade  of  grass.     As  Christians  you  are  to  forgive 
them  for  this  attempt,  whe7i  they  have  repented,  and  made 
atonement ;  but  not  before ;  and,  even  then,  you  are  not 
to  forget  the  attempt;  you  are  to  be  on  your  guard  against 
them  in  future ;  and,  you  ought  to  get  all  their  names,  and 
send  them  to  me,  and  I  will  put  them  i?i  prints  which  will. 


88  Two-penny  Trash; 

doubtless,  delight  them ;  for,  as  I  said  before,  the  fellows, 
stingy  as  they  are,  will  squeeze  out  some  few  shillings  now- 
and-then  to  pay  dirty  printers  in  the  country  to  print  their 
Dames.  To  be  sure,  this  is  when  they  are  speechmakers,  or 
presidents,  or  vice-presidents ;  and  they  may  not  like  it, 
when  they  appear  as  robbers  of  the  poor ;  as  extortioners  ; 
or  graspers,  surpassing  in  greediness  the  very  wolves  them- 
selves. But.  yet,  as  enemies  of  radicals,  they  cannot  object 
to  have  their  names  put  into  print.  At  any  rate,  in  print 
they  shall  be,  if  I  can  do  it,  and  you  shall  have  them  to 
stick  up  over  your  fire-places ;  and  t?ie  name  of  their  at- 
torney too. 

5.  In  the  year  1816,  I  think  it  was,  when  the  labouring 
people  of  our  neighbourhood  were  suffering  very  much  from 
want  of  employment.  I  proposed  to  the  parish  of  Bishop's 
Waltham,  that  we  should  petition  the  Bishop,  who  was  lord 
of  the  manor,  to  grant  an  acre  of  waste  land  to  any  mar- 
ried labourer  who  would  enclose,  and  cultivate,  and  live  on 
it.  I  called  a  vestry  of  the  parish,  and  to  the  farmers  and 
land-owners  made  this  proposition.  We  put  the  matter  to 
the  vote,  and  every  man  voted  against  me,  with  the  single 
exception  of  Mr,  Jennings,  the  schoolmaster !  The  three 
orators  against  me  were,  Budd,  of  Stakes  ;  Chiddle, 
then  with  three  farms  in  his  hands ;  and  Steel,  of  Ash- 
ton.  Budd  said,  that  to  give  the  labourers  a  bit  of  land 
would  make  them  "  sacy ; "  Chiddle  said,  that  it  would 
only  make  them  "  breed  more  children;*'  and  Steel 
said,  that  it  would  make  them  demand  **^  higher  wages. ^^ 
"What  is  the  present  state  of  Budd  I  do  not  know ;  Chiddle 
has  not  now  so  much  land,  I  hear,  as  one  of  the  labourers 
would  have  had ;  and,  as  to  Steel,  he,  who  used  so  to  swag- 
ger, has  since  blown  his  brains  out  with  a  pistol !  When 
I  heard  of  the  'awful  end  of  this  man,  and  of  the  great 
change  in  the  affairs  of  Chiddle,  I  could  not  help  calling  to 


1st  October,  1830.  89 

mind  their  conduct  on  the  above  occasion,  and  to  call  to 
mind  also  the  denunciations  of  God  against  the  oppressors 
of  the  poor :  *'  Hear  this/'  said  I,  when  I  heard  of  the 
death  of  Steel.  "  Hear  this,  O  ye  that  swallow  up  the 
^*  needy,  even  to  make  the  poor  of  the  land  to  fail !  I  will 
**  turn  your  feasting  into  mourning ^  saith  the  Lord  God, 
•*  and  your  songs  into  lamentations.*'  These  words  of  the 
prophet  Amos,  let  the  Graspalls,  young  and  old,  bear 
in  mind ;  and,  as  they  are  remarkably  pious  people,  let 
them  turn  to  Isaiah,  chapter  v.  and  verse  8,  and  there 
read,  *'  WOE  unto  them  who  join  house  to  housey  that 
•^  lay  jfield  to  field,  till  there  be  no  place,  that  they  may 
*'  be  placed  alone  in  the  midst  of  the  earthJ'  Let  them 
think  of  these  words ;  let  them  bear  in  mind  the  curses 
which  God  has  laid  on  the  guilty  head  of  the  extortioner  ; 
and  let  them  remember,  that,  of  all  extortions,  the  most 
detestably  wicked  is  that  by  which  the  labourer  is  defrauded 
of  his  hire,  whether  by  cunning  or  by  force,  whether  in  the 
field  or  in  the  chandler's  shop. 

89.  Now,  my  friends,  I  must  close  for  the  present;  and, 
an  the  next  Number,  which  will  be  published  on  the  first 
of  November y  I  will  finish  the  subject,  I  will  then  expose 
Willis  Fleming's  rubbish  about  the  Corn  Billy  and  about  his 
Savings  Banks  and  Friendly  Societies;  I  will  show  you, 
that  these  arc  schemes  for  making  the  poor  keep  the  rich  ; 
I  will  explain  all  the  trick  to  you ;  I  will  bring  out  the 
Graspalls  more  into  the  light ;  I  will  pull  out  the  Bot- 
XEY  Parson  (who,  I  hear,  was  one  of  the  crew  at  the 
dinner) ;  and,  in  short,  I  wdll  supply  you  with  this  and  ano- 
ther little  book  for  you  to  read  all  the  winter.  The  remain- 
ing part  of  this  present  little  book  will  be  filled  with  the 
copy  of  a  petition  to  the  king,  drawn  up  by  me,  and  now 
signing  in  London.  This  is  a  radical  petition.  Read  it, 
my  friends,  keep  it,  read  it  over  and  over  again,  and  then 


90  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

you  will  know  what  a  radical  is.  The  price  of  this  little 
book  is  twopence  ;  but,  as  I  want  it  to  be  read  on  Hortoa 
Heath,  Botley  Common,  Curdrige  Common,  Sherril  Heath, 
Waltham  Chase,  and  at  Botley  and  all  the  villages  round 
about,  I  will  sell  a  hundred  copies  of  this,  and  also  of  the 
next  Number,  at  a  penny  a  copy  to  any  one  that  I  know 
within  ten  miles  of  Botley,  or^  indeed,  to  any  one  that  / 
know  in  any  part  of  Ha?npshire.  I  have  printed  a  good 
parcel  for  this  purpose. — Read  the  Petition,  and  God  keep 
you  from  being  pinched  to  death  by  the  Grasp  alls. 

Wm.  COBBETT. 


TO  THE 

KING'S  MOST  EXCELLENT  MAJESTY, 

THE  PETITION 

Of  persons  belonging  to  the  Industrious  Classes  of  London  and  its 
vicinity y  dated  this  \bth  day  of  September,  1830, 

Most  humbly  showeth , 

That  we  approach  your  Majesty,  not  as  blind  adorers  of  royalty, 
but  as  faithful  and  dutiful  subjects,  whose  fidelity  and  duty  are 
founded  in  our  conviction,  that,  in  highly  honouring  and  cheer- 
fully obeying  your  Majesty,  in  upholding  with  all  our  might  youp 
just  prerogatives,  and  evincing  our  most  profound  respect  for  your 
person,  we  best  consult  our  own  welfare,  knowing  that  you  are  en- 
dowed with  those  prerogatives  for  the  common  good  of  us  all,  and 
Dot  for  your  own  exclusive  advantage.  * 

That  feelingi  ourselves  thus  bound  to  your  Majesty,  not  by  harsh 
constraint,  but  by  a  willing  obedience  arising  from  a  due  estimate 
of  our  own  interest  and  honour,  regarding  your  person  as  sacred, 
not  from  servility  of  mind,  but  because  you  are  the  fountain  of  jus- 
tice and  of  mercy,  taught  by  the  laws  of  our  country  that  kings 
"were  made  for  the  people  and  not  the  people  for  kings,  regarding 
your  kingly  powers  as  given  to  you  for  the  purpose  of  preserving 
the  peace,  the  rights,  and  the  happiness  of  the  people,  and  more 
especially  for  the  defence  and  protection  of  the  weak  against  the 


1st  October,  18.30.  91 

strong,  of  th6  poor  against  the  unjust  encroachments  of  the  rich, 
of  the  fruits  of  industry  against  the  wiles  and  the  violence  of  aristo<« 
cratical  amhition,  arrogance,  and  rapacity ;  animated  by  all  these 
considerations,  and  beholding  in  your  Majesty's  most  gracious  con- 
duct and  demeanour  an  indubitable  proof  of  your  anxious  desire 
to  promote  our  good  by  a  redress  of  oi^r  grievances,  we,  with  the 
confidence  with  which  suffering  children  appeal  to  a  tender  father, 
lay  those  grievances  before  your  Majesty. 

That  we  complain,  may  it  please  your  Majesty,  not  of  the  form 
of  that  Government  which  has  endured  for  so  many  ages,  and 
under  which  our  fathers  were  so  free,  lived  in  such  ease  and 
abundance,  and  saw  their  country  so  great  and  so  much  honoured 
throughout  the  world;  we  complain  not  of  the  nature  of  the  in- 
stitutions of  our  country,  which  have  stood  the  test  of  centuries  ; 
we  complain  not  of  any-thing,  an  attack  on  which  would  argue  a 
hankering  after  innovation,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  of  iqnova*^ 
tious,  innovations  endless  in  number,  cruelly  oppressive,  and  stu- 
diously insulting,  that  we  have  now  to  make  complaint  to  your 
Majesty. 

That  we  complain,  generally,  that  the  whole  of  the  laws  passed 
within  the  last  forty  years,  and  especially  within  the  last  twenty 
years,  present  one  unbroken  series  of  endeavours  to  enrich  and  to 
augment  the  power  of  the  aristocracy,  and  to  impoverish  and  de-* 
press  the  middle  and  labouring  part  of  the  people  ;  and  that  to  give 
your  Majesty  a  specimen  of  the  wrongs  and  indignities  heaped 
upon  us,  we  specifically  complain  that  the.  trial  by  jui^,  held  so 
sacred  by  our  fathers,  and  provided  for  by  Magna  Charta,  as  so 
necessary  to  the  protection  of  the  people,  has,  in  a  great  measure, 
been  taken  from  us,  leaving  us  to  be  fined,  imprisoned,  corporally 
punished,  and,  in  some  cases,  transported,  without  trial  by  jury, 
and  at  the  sole  discretion  of  magistrates,  appointed  by  and  dismiss- 
able  at  the  pleasure  of  your  Majesty's  Ministers ;  we  complain 
that  within  the  last  forty  years  the  most  grievous  taxes  have  been 
laid  upon  us  for  the  benefit  of  the  aristocracy,  to  heap  riches  on 
them  in  the  shape  of  pensions,  sinecures,  and  places,  and  that,  as 
a  specimen,  113  of  them  are,  in  one  case,  now  receiving  out  of  the 
taxes  650,000/,  a  year :  we  complain  that  the  two  families  of  Gren- 
ville  and  Dundas  have,  during  the  last  forty  years,  received  more 
money  in  sinecures  alone,  than  it  has  cost,  during  the  same  time, 
to  maintain  the  whole  of  the  civil  government  of  the  United  States 
of  America,  which,  under  that  cheap  government,  have  arrived  at 
population  and  power  to  rival  those  of  England  herself :  we  com- 
plain, that  while  the  laws  and  usages  of  our  country  hold  standing 
armies  in  abhorrence,  and  while  they  are  wholly  unnecessary  to 
our  country,  especially  in  time  of  peace,  we  are  now  taxed,  at  the 
end  of  sixteen  years  of  peace,  to  maintain  a  standing  army  that 
■costs  more  yearly  than  the  army  that  was  maintained  during  the 
American  war,  when  we  had  war  also  with  France,  Spain,  and  Hol- 
land, and  this  too  while  we  have,  besides  the  yeomanry,  a  militia 
of  sixty  thousand  men,  always  ready  to  be  called  out:  we  com* 
plain,  that  at  the  end  of  sixteen  years  of  peace  we  are  taxed  to 


92  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

maintain  a  navy  which  cos;s  five  millions  a  year,  while  the  navy 
cost  only  seven  millions  a  year  when  we  were  carrying  on  war 
against  America,  France,  Spain,  and  Holland :  we  complain  that 
ill  this  peace,  which  was  to  give  us  indfemnity  for  the  past  and  se- 
curity for  the  future,  we  are  loaded  with  taxes  twice  as  heavy  as 
those  which  were  required  during  the  war  against  all  those  powers ; 
■yve  complain    that  the  emolument  arising  from  these  establish- 
ments are  engrossed,  for  the  far  greater  part,  by  the  aristocracy 
and  their  dependents,  for  whose  sole  benefit  they  appear  to  exist  to 
this  enormous  extent,  a  conclusion  fully  warranted  when  we  see 
that  we  have  three  generils  for  every  regiment  of  soldiers,  two  ad- 
mirals for  every  ship  of  the  line,  that  we  have,  taking  both  services 
together,  one  commissioned  officer  to  every  five  private  men,  and 
especially  when  we  look  at  the  families  and  connexions  from  which 
all  the  officers  come ;  we  complain  that,  in  the  navy,  the  bulwark 
of  our  country,  promotion  and  power  are  so  bestowed,  that  sons  of 
the  aristocracy,  who  were  children  at  the  end  of  the  war,  have  the 
command  of  ships,  and  have  under  them  masters  and  lieutenants 
"who  were  fighting  at  sea  before  these  commanders  were  born  :  we 
complain  that,  in  pursuance  of  this  system  of  aggrandising  the  aris- 
tocracy at  the  expense  and  to  the  depressing  of  the  middle  and 
"Working  classes,  military  and  naval  and  ordnance  academies  have 
been  established,  for  the  rearing  of  officers  for  the  army  and  navy, 
and  that  in  these  the  children  of  the  aristocracy  and  of  their  depen- 
dents are  nursed,  fed,  clad,  and  taught  at  the  public  expense,  so 
that  the  middle  and  working  class  are  compelled  to  pay  for  the 
nursing,  and  feeding,  and  teaching  of  the  children  of  the  aristo- 
cracy, and  that  too  for  the  manifest  purpose  of  excluding  for  ever 
hereafter  their  own  children  and  kindred  from  all  chance,  and  even 
all  possibility,  of  possessing  military  or  naval  command  :   we  com- 
plain of  the  establishment  of  military  asylums  for  rearing  up  the 
children  of  soldiers  in  ease  and  comfort  at  the  public  expense,  the 
children  of  working  men  being,  under  like  circumstances,  treated 
as  paupers,  while  their  fathers  are  compelled  to  pay  taxes  to  sup- 
port these  asylums :  we  complain,  that,  in   accordance  with  this 
system  of  establishing  a  permanent  military  force,  while  the  pay 
of  the  private  soldier  has  been  so  augmented  as  to  make  it,  over 
and  ab^ve  his  clothing  and  lodging  and  fuel,  greater  than  the  ave- 
rage wages  of  the  hard-working  man,  the  soldier,  like  the  aristo- 
cracy, is  excused  from  paying  postage  on  his  letters,  while  the 
hard-working  and  half-starved  man,  who  is  taxed  to  maintain  that 
well-fed  and  well-clad  soldier,  is  not  so  excused :  we  complain, 
that  we  have  been  taxed  to  give  half-pay,  in  the  army  and  navy, 
to  a  large  part  of  the  clergy  of  the  established  church,  who,  foF 
twelve  years,  were  receiving  tithes,   Easter-otferings,  and  other 
dues,  as  rectors  and  vicars,  and  at  the  same  time  receiving  military 
or  naval  half-pay,  and  who,  at  the  end  of  that  time,  were  allowed 
to  sell,  or  transfer  this  half-pay,  still  leaving  it  a  charge  upon  this 
burdened  and  suffering  people  :  we  complain,  that  within  the  last 
thirty  years,  1,600,000/.  have  been  paid  out  of  the  taxes  for,  as  was 
alleged,  *'  the  relief  of  the  poor  clergy  of  the  church  of  England,'* 


1st  October,  1830.  93 

while  the  bishops  of  that  church  have  revenues  from  ten  to  forty 
thousand  pounds  a  year,  while  the  Deans  and  Chapters  have  wealth 
enormous,  while  there  arc  numbers  of  the  aristocratical  clergy  who 
have  two,  three,  or  more  benefices  each,  and  while,  to  cite  an  in- 
stance, the  Earl  of  Guilford  has,  at  this  time,  the  great  living  of  St. 
Mary,  Southampton,  including  the  adjoining  parish  of  South  Stone- 
ham,  the  livings  of  Old  Alresford,  of  New  Alresford,  and  of  Medstead, 
a  Prebend  at  Winchester,  and  the  Mastership  of  St.  Cross  :  we  com« 
plain,  that  the  revenues  of  the  church  are  thus  distributed,  that 
there  are  *' poor  clergy  "  in  this  rich  and  luxurious  church;  but 
we  more  especially  complain,  that  we  are  taxed  for  the  relief  of 
those   who  are  made  poor  by   this   scandalous  grasping   of  the 
church-revenues  by  the  aristocracy  :  we  complain,  not  only  of  the 
weight  of  the  taxes  arising  from  the  afore- mentioned  causes,  but 
of  their  partial  imposition,  falling  as  they  do,  like  feathers  on  the 
aristocracy,  aod  like  lead  on  the  middle  and  working  class  :  we 
complain,  that  the  taxes  on  the  malt,  the  sugar,  the  tea,  or  the 
spirits,  amount,  on  either  of  these  articles,  to  more  than  the  tax  on 
all  the  lands  in  the  kingdom  :  we  complain,  that  while  foreign  wine 
pays  a  duty  of  fifty  per  cent,  on  its  value,  foreign  spirits  pay  four 
hundred  per  cent. :  we  complain,  that  while  the  goods  which  are 
the  result  of  our  labour  or  skill  pay  a  heavy  auction-tax,  the  tim- 
ber, underwood,  and  other  produce  of  land,  sold  on  the  land,  pay 
DO  such  tax  :  we  complain,  that,  of  the  more  than  two  millions  a 
year  raised  by  the  tax  on  letters  received  by  the  post,  the  aristo- 
cracy pay  not  one  single  farthing;    we  complain  (leaving  out  a 
hundred  other  instances),  that  in  the  case  of  probates  of  wills  and 
administrations,  no  tax  at  all  is  paid  by  the  land,  while  a  heavy  tax: 
is  imposed  on  personal  property,  and  thus,  while  the  middle  class 
lias  to  sustain  this  cruel  tax,  not  a  farthing  of  it  falls  upon  the 
owners  of  the  land!   we  complain,  that,  as  if  all  these  were  not 
enough,  a  Corn  Bill  has  been  passed,  and  has  been  in  force  for  fif- 
teen years,  giving  the  aristocracy  a  monopoly  of  that  necessary  of 
life,  shutting  out  food,  while  it  was  asserted  by  those  who  made  the 
law,  that  there  were  too  many  mouths,  compelling  manufacturers 
to  buy  their  bread  dear,  and  to  sell  their  goods  and  labour  cheap, 
sacrificing  all  the  rest  of  the  community  to  the  greediness  of  the 
owners  of  the  land  :  we  complain  that  the  game-laws,  always  unjust 
in  principle,  always  at  war  with  the  rights  of  nature  and  the  dic- 
tates of  reason,  have,  within  the  last  fifteen  years,  become  tenfold 
more  cruel  than  formerly,  for  that  to  pecuniary  penalties,  or  short 
imprisonment,  for  an  infraction  of  those  laws,  are  now  added  long 
imprisonment,  corporeal  punishment,  and  transportation  beyond 
the  seas  for  seven  years,  and  these  too  at  the  sole  discretion  of  the 
justices  of  the  peace,  appointed  by  and  dismissable  at  the  pleasure 
of  the  Ministers   of  the  day:   we  complain,  that  the  new  law  [of 
trespass  has  empowered  magistrates  to  imprison  poor  men  and  to 
cause  them  to  be  corporally  punished  without  any  trial,  while  the 
great  trespasser  is  left  under  the  protection  of  the  ancient  law :  we 
complain,  that  the  working  people  having  been,  by  the  weight  o^ 
the  taxes  on  the  necessaries  of  life,  reduced  to  a  state  of  pauperi^iPa 


94  '       Two-penny  Trash; 

laws  were  next  made  to  prevent  them  from  obtaining  parochial  relief 
as  heretofore:  we  complain,  that,  within  these  twelve  years,  two  acts 
have  been  passed,  one  to  throw  the  power  of  vestries  into  the  hands 
of  all  the  landowners,  and  arlolher  to  enable  those  landowners  to 
set  at  defiance  even  the  power  of  the  magistrates  to  cause  relief  to 
be  given:  we  complain,  that  in  consequence  of  these  taxes,  this 
monopoly  in  corn,  and  the  severities  on  the  working  people,  of 
which  we  have  here  given  merely  a  specimen,  the  working  people 
of  England,  once  the  best  fed,  best  clad,  and  most  moral  in  the 
"world,  have  become  the  most  miserable  and  degraded  to  be  found 
on  the  face  of  the  earth,  those  of  unhappy  Ireland  only  to  be  ex- 
cepted; we  complain,  that  the  landowners  compel  them  to  draw 
carts  and  wagons  like  beasts  of  burden,  that  they  keep  men 
forcibly  from  their  wives  for  a  purpose  too  gross  to  mention,  thax 
others  forbid  them  to  marry  upon  pain  of  being  left  to  beg  or 
starve,  and  that  others  sell  them  by  the  week  or  month  by  public 
auction  ;  we  complain  that  the  House  of  Commons,  though  fully 
apprised  of  all  this  suffering,  though  they  have,  in  evidence  given 
before  their  committees,  proof  upon  proof  of  the  wretchedness  of 
the  people,  though  they  have  in  evidence,  that  the  honest  working 
man  is  fed  worse  than  the  convicted  felons  in  the  jails  and  the 
hulks,  though  it  has  been  proved  to  them  that  the  working  people 
commit  crimes  for  the  express  purpose  of  getting  at  the  better  fare 
in  the  prisons;  though  they  have  been  fully  informed  upon  all 
these  points,  though  they  must  be  acquainted  with  the  notorious 
facts,  that  the  working  people  have,  in  many  instances,  resorted  to 
the  food  of  hogs  and  dogs,  and  have  in  many  others  been  actually 
starved  to  death,  they  have  adopted  no  measure  for  their  relief, 
but  measures  innumerable  for  their  punishment,  closing,  at  last, 
with  a  bill  to  authorise  the  keepers  of  poor-houses  and  hospitals  to 
sell  their  dead  bodies  for  dissection,  and  thus,  in  this  signal 
respect,  putting  the  honest,  worn-out  or  unfortunate  man  upon  a 
level  with  the  murderer. 

That  to  our  gracious  and  just  and  merciful  King  we  complain, 
as  of  the  real  cause  of  all  these  oppressions  and  sufferings,  that 
we  are  not  represented  in  that  which  is  called,  and  ought  to  be,  the 
Commons'  or  people's  House  of  Parliament:  we  complain,  that 
though  it  had  been  stated  to  that  House  in  1793,  without  an 
attempt  at  contradiction,  that  one  hundred  and  fifty-four  peers 
and  great  commoners  and  the  treasury  put  a  decided  majority 
into  the  House,  had  proof  tendered  (which  it  would  not  receive) 
that  two  of  the  Ministers  had  actually  sold  a  seat  in  the 
House,  yet  when,  in  1817,  we  petitioned  for  such  a  reform  as 
would  put  an  end  to  these  odious  practices,  that  House,  instead  of 
listening  to  our  humble  prayers,  passed  a  law  which  enabled  the 
Ministers  to  put  us  into  dungeons  at  their  pleasure,  deprived  of 
the  sight  of  friends  and  of  the  use  of  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  which 
law  was  carried  into  effect  with  unheard-of  severity  and  cruelty : 
we  complain,  that,  in  1819,  a  body  of  persons  peaceably  met  at 
Manchester  for  the  purpose  of  petitioning  parliament  to  adopt  a 
reform  of  the  Commons'  House,  were  attacked  by  soldiers^  and,  to 


1st  Octowr,  1830.  95 

the  amount  of  some  hundreds,  either  killed,  crippled  or  wounded : 
fve  complain,  that  the  soldiers  were  by  Lord  Viscount  Sidmouth 
thanked,  in  his  late  Majesty's  name,  for  their  conduct  on  that 
sang:uinary  day  ;  we  complain,  that  the  House  of  Commons  refused 
all  inquiry  into  that  memorable  and  horrible  transaction,  but  that 
it,  in  that  same  session,  passed  six  distinct  acts,  each  of  which 
further  and  greatly  abridged  our  rights  and  liberties,  and  particu- 
larly two  of  them,  by  which  the  liberty  of  the  press  was,  in  effect, 
as  far  as  related  to  the  working-  people,  nearly  extinguished,  but 
above  all  things,  we  humbly  beseech  your  Majesty  to  remark,  that 
that  House,  with  the  records  of  1793,  1809,  and  1819,  before  it, 
passed  a  law,  inflicting  fine,  imprisonment,  and  even  banishment, 
on  any  man  or  woman  who  should  write,  print,  or  publish  any- 
thing having  even  a  tendency  to  brinig  it  into  contempt. 

Thus,  may  it  please  your  Majesty,  we  have,  in  all  humility  and 
dutifulness,  submitted  to  your  wisdom  and  justice  a  statement  of 
a  part  of  our  manifold  grievances  and  sufferings ;  we  have,  in  the 
sincerity  of  our  hearts,  expressed  to  you  our  firm  conviction,  that 
all  these  have  arisen  from  our  not  being  represented  in  parliament ; 
and  as  the  means  of  restoring  us  to  liberty  and  happiness,  as  the 
means  of  uniting  all  hearts  in  preserving  the  peace  of  our  country 
and  upholding  the  dignity  and  true  splendour  of  your  Majesty's 
crown,  we  humbly  but  earnestly  pray,  that  of  those  great  powers 
with  which  your  Majesty  is  invested  for  the  good  of  your  faithful 
people,  you  will  be  graciously  pleased  to  make  such  use  as  shall 
produce  a  reform  in  the  Commons*  House,  ensuring  to  all  adult 
males,  not  insane  and  not  tarnished  by  indelible  crime,  a  voice 
given  by  ballot,  in  the  choosing  of  representatives,  and  as  shall 
shorten  the  duration  of  Parliaments, 
And  your  petitioners,  as  in  duty  bound,  will  ever  pray. 


I  have  just  room  to  tell  you,  that  the  people  of  Belgium, 
the  common  people,  have  beaten  the  Dutch  armies,  who 
were  marched  against  them  to  compel  them  to  pay  enormous 
taxes.  This  Is  excellent  news.  This  event  will  make  the 
GraspalI/AI^  mourn;  for  they  like  taxes,  because  they 
make  you  pay  them,  and,  in  fact,  pay  none  themselves. 
The  taxes  keep  you  down,  and  do  not  touch  them.  Mind 
that. 


96 

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No.  V. 


COBBETT'S 


TWO-PENNY  TRASH 


For  the  Month  of  November,  1830. 


FIRES  IN  KENT  AND  SUSSEX. 
TO  THE  WORKING  PEOPLE  OF  ENGLAND. 

Bolt -Court,  London  y  1830. 
My  Friends, 

Amongst  all  the  crimes  that  men  committed  against  their 
neighbours,  that  which  the  law  calls  arson,  and  which  is  a  mali- 
cious setting  fire  to  their  buildings  or  their  stacks ;  a  crime  always 
held  in  great  and  just  abhorrence,  and  always  "pumshe^  with' death  ; 
and  so  necessary  has  this  punishment  been  deemed  to  the  safety 
of  society,  that  children  not  more  than  ten  years  of  age  have  been 
put  to  death  for  it;  because  it  is  a  crime  so  easily  committed, 
committed  with  so  much  secresy,  and  in  the  commission  of  which. 
a  very  young  person  may  be  the  instrument  of  grown-up  persons. 
It  is  a  truly  abominable  crime,  because  the  commission  of  it  may 
cause  innocent  persons  to  perish  in  the  flames  ;  and,  at  the  very 
least,  it  may,  in  a  moment,  ruin  whole  families,  reducing  them 
from  competence  to  beggary.  * 

When,  therefore,  we  hear  of  acts  of  this  description  being  al- 
most nightly  committed  in  Englandy  our  first  feeling  is  that  of 
resentment  against  the  parties ;  but,  when  we  have  had  a  little  time 
to  reflect,  we  are,  if  we  be  not  devourers  of  the  fruit  of  the  people's 
labours,  led  to  ask,  What  can  have  been  the  cause  of  a  state  of 
things  so  unnatural  as  that  in  which  crimes  of  this  horrid  kind  are 


London  :   Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet- street, 

and  sold  by  all  Booksellers, 

r 


98  Two-penny  Trash; 

committed  by  hundreds  of  men  going  in  a  body,  and  deemed  by 
them  to  be  a  sort  of  duty  instead  of  crimes?  When  we  put  this 
question  we  are  not  to  be  answered  with  the  assertion,  that  the 
crimes  arise  from  the  vicious  disposition  of  the  working  people  % 
because  then  we  ask,  what  it  is  that  has  made  them  so  vicious. 
No  ;  this  cannot  be  the  cause.  The  people  are  of  the  same  make 
and  nature  that  they  always  were;  the  land  is  the  same,  the  climate 
the  same,  the  language  and  the  religion  the  same,  and,  it  is  very 
"well  known,  that  schools  and  places  of  worship,  and  the  circulation 
of  the  Bible  and  of  religious  books,  have  all  been  prodigiously  in- 
creasing for  many  years,  and  are  now  more  on  the  increase  than 
ever.  There  must,  therefore,  be  some  other  cause,  or  causes,  to 
produce  these  dreadful  acts  in  a  people  the  most  just,  the  most 
good-natured,  and  the  most  patient,  in  the  world.  I  know  this 
cause;  or,  rather,  these  causes;  I  know  also  that  there  is  an 
effectual  remedy  of  this  great  and  melancholy  evil  ;  and  I  need  not 
say,  that  it  is  my  duty  to  state  them  both  with  perfect  frankness ;  a 
duty  which  I  shall  perform  as  briefly  and  with  as  much  clearness 
as  I  am  able. 

The  great  and  general  cause  is  the  extreme  poverty  of  the 
■working  people  ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  starving  state  in  whicli 
they  are.  That  Bible,  which  they  have  been  taught  to  read,  as  the 
means  of  saving  their  souls,  tells  them,  from  one  end  to  the  other, 
that  their  bodies  also  are  not  to  be  left  to  perish  for  want,  while  the 
land  abounds  with  plenty,  and  that  plenty  arising,  too,  from  their 
own  labour.  It  tells  them,  and  they  know  it,  that  the  '«  labourer 
is  worthy  of  his  hire,"  and  they  know  that  that  hire  means  a  suffi- 
ciency,  not  only  for  the  man  who  works  but  for  his  wife  and 
children,  and  of  clothes  and  fuel  and  lodging  too,  as  well  as  of 
victuals  and  drink.  Can  God,  who  commanded  that  even  the  ox 
should  not  be  muzzled  as  he  trod  out  the  corn,  be  pleased  to  see 
men,  who  have  tilled  the  land,  sowed  the  corn  and  reaped  it  and 
boused  it,  forbidden  to  touch  the  flour,  and  condemned  to  eat 
Toots,  or  herbage,  not  sufficient  to  keep  a  pig  in  good  plight  ? 
Every  line  of  Holy  Writ  tells  them,  that  this  cannot  be  the  will  of 
God,  while  tradition,  while  all  the  sayings  of  their  forefathers,  tell 
them,  that  such  a  state  of  things  is  contrary  also  to  the  laws  and 
customs  of  their  native  country. 

The  natural  consequence  is  discontent ;  that  leads  to  resentment. 
No  man  can  suffer  what  he  deems  a  wrong  without  feeling  anger 
against  somebody.  He  may  be  in  error  as  to  the  object  of  his  anger  ; 
but  he  must  feel  anger  against  somebody  ;  and  that  anger  will  vent 
itself  in  acts,  whenever  he  finds  himself  able  to  act.  It  does  not 
signify  that  he  gets  no  redress  by  such  action.  He  gets  revenge^ 
and  that  is  redress  to  a  certain  extent.  Now,  the  working  people 
of  England  know  that  they  work  hard,  and  that  they  are  fed  like 
dogs  and  hogs.  They  know,  too,  that  their  forefathers  were  not 
thus  fed.  That  they  are  thus  fed  now  is  a  fact,  not  resting  upon 
my  assertion,  or  upon  the  assertion  of  any  man  ;  it  is  a  fact  proved 
by  witnesses  examined  before  Committees  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons.   I  will,  now,  first  stat€  the  case  of  the  labourers  of  England  ; 


1st  November,  1831.  99 

which  is  as  follows  :  1.  That  they  have  been,  by  dep-ees,  brought 
down  to  the  most  miserable  living,  not  fit  for  human  beings  ; 
2.  That  this  has  been  done  by  the  taxes  ;  3.  That,  while  those  who 
work  hare  been,  and  are,  half-starving,  those  who  live  o;i  the  taxes 
have  been,  and  are,  wallowing  in  luxury  and  shining  in  splendour  ; 

4.  That,  as  the  poverty  and  misery  of  the  labouring  people  have  in- 
creased, new  laws  have  been  made,  by  which  new  and  heretofore 
unheard-of  restraints  have  been  imposed,  and  new  punishments 
and  indignities  without  number  have  been  inflicted  upon  them  ; 

5.  That,  at  last,  so  desperate  has  become  their  state,  that  jails, 
transportation,  and  even  death,  have  lost  their  terrors,  when  put  in 
comparison  with  the  sufferings  under  quiet  submission. 

Such  is  the  case  of  the  labourers,  of  the  working  people,  of 
England,  whose  forefathers  led  the  happiest  lives  of  any  working 
people  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  1  am,  at  this  time,  speaking 
more  particularly  of  the  acts  of  the  farming  labourers  ;  but,  they 
are  not  to  be  separated  from  those  who  make  and  mend  the  imple- 
ments and  the  tools  and  the  harness,  and  who  shoe  the  horses  and 
slaughter  the  cattle;  nor  are  they  to  be  separated  from  those  who 
spin  and  weave  the  cloth  and  make  the  coats,  the  shoes,  and  the 
hats,  and  those  who  make  and  repair  the  buildings  ;  all  who  labour 
are  in  the  same  boat ;  all  suffer  alike  ;  and  from  the  same  causes ; 
all  are  discontented  ;  all  feel  the  same  resentment;  in  the  above 
five  propositions  the  case  of  them  all  is  stated  ;  and  now  I  have  to 
prove  that  1  have  TRULY  stated  that  case. 

1.  That  the  icorhlng  people  have  been,  by  degrees,  brought  down 
to  the  most  miserable  living,  not  Jit  for  human  beings.  The  proof 
of  this  is  in  the  following  facts  ;  that,  in  1821,  before  a  Committee 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  Mr.  John  Eilmau,  sen.,  near  Lewes, 
Sussex,  said,  that  45  years  before  that  time,  when  he  became  a 
farmer,  every  man  in  his  parish  brewed  his  own  beer,  and  enjoyed 
it,  with  his  family,  by  his  own  fireside,  and  that,  now,  not  a  single 
man  in  the  parish  did  it,  except  one  or  two  to  whom  he  gave  the 
malt.  Beforethe  same  Committee,  the  High  Sheriff  of  Wiltshire 
said,  that  the  labouring  people,  in  that  county,  who  used  formerly 
to  eat  meat  and  bread  and  drink  beer,  now  lived  wholly  on  potatoes, 
and  that  the  ploughmen  and  others  carried  cold  potatoes  to  afield, 
instead  of  the  meat,  cheese,  bread  and  beer,  that  they  used  to  carry. 
In  1828,  a  magistrate  of  Wiltshire  (it  was  just  the  same  in  Berk- 
shire) laid  a  scale  of  payment  of  the  labourers  before  the  Com- 
mittee, showing,  that  to  each  member  of  a  family  was  allowed 
2f  a  day,  that  is  to  say,  the  price  of  \^\h.  of  bread,  with  nothing 
for  clothing,  fuel,  or  lodging  ;  that  is  to  say,  only  about  a  third  of 
what  was  allowed  to  the  sick  in  the  hospitals,  and  about  a  half  of 
what  was  allowed  to  the  felons  in  the  jails,  and  less  than  a  fourth 
of  what  was,  and  is,  paid  to  the  common  private  foot  soldier,  ex- 
clusive of  clothes,  lodging,  fuel  and  candle  !  And,  while  the  hard- 
working men  were,  and  are,  living  in  this  misery,  they  see,  sup- 
ported out  of  their  toil,  the  fat  horses  of  the  soldiers,  each  man  and 
liorse  of  them  costing  more  than  would  maintain  seven  families  at 
the  above  rate  !    The  Qtrk^hir^  jail-regulations  make  provision  for 

J  2 


100  Two-penny  Trash; 

setting  the  conricted  prisoners,  in  certain  cases,  TO  WORK,  and, 
tbcy  say,  **lf  the  surgeon  think  it  necessary,  the  WORKING 
PRISONERS  may  be  allowed  MEAT  AND  BROTH  ON  MEAT 
DAYS  ";  and  on  Sundays,  of  course  !  There  it  is  !  There  is  the 
"  envy  and  admiration  '* !  There  is  the  state  to  which  Mr.  Pro- 
sperity and  Mr.  Canning's  best  Parliament  have  brought  us.  There 
is  the  result  of  ^^  victories*'  and  prize-money  and  battles  of  Water- 
loo and  of  English  ladies  kissing  **  Old  Blucher."  There  is  the 
fruit,  the  natural  fruit,  of  anti-jacobinism  and  battles  on  the  Ser- 
pentine River  and  jubilees  and  heaven-born  ministers  and  sinking- 
funds  and  "  public  credit"  and  army  and  navy  contracts.  There 
is  the  fruit,  the  natural,  the  nearly  (but  not  quite)  ripe  fruit  of  it 
all :  the  CONVICTED  FELON  is,  if  he  do  not  work  at  all,  allowed, 
on  week-days,  some  vegetables  in  addition  to  his  bread,  and  ou 
Sunday,  both  meat  and  broth;  and,  if  the  CONVICTED  FELON 
work,  if  he  be  a  WORKING  convicted  felon,  he  is  allowed  meat 
and  broth  all  the  week  round ;  while,  hear  it  Burdett,  thou  Berk- 
shire magistrate  !  hear  it,  all  ye  base  miscreants  who  have  perse- 
cuted men  because  they  sought  a  reform  !  the  WORKING  CON- 
VICTED FELON  is  allowed  meat  and  broth  every  day  in  the  year, 
while  the  WORKING  HONEST  MAN  is  allowed  nothing  but  dry 
bread,  and  of  that  not  half  a  belly-full  !  And  yet  you  see  people 
that  seem  surprised  that  criynes  increase  !  Very  strange,  to  be 
sure ;  that  men  should  like  to  work  upon  meat  and  broth  better  than 
they  like  to  work  upon  dry  bread  !  No  wonder  that  new  jails 
arise.  No  wonder  that  there  are  now  two  or  three  or  four  or  five 
jails  to  one  county,  and  that  as  much  is  now  written  upon  ''prison 
discipline**  as  upon  almost  any  subject  that  is  going.  But  why  so 
good,  so  generous,  to  FELONS?  The  truth  is  that  they  are  not 
fed  too  well ;  for  to  be  starved  is  no  part  of  their  sentence ;  and, 
here  are  SURGEONS  who  have  something  to  say  !  They  know 
very  well  that  a  man  may  be  murdered  by  keeping  necessary  food 
from  him.  Felons  are  not  apt  to  lie  down  and  die  quietly  for  want 
of  food.  The  jails  are  in  large  towns,  where  the  news  of  any  cruelty 
soon  gets  about.  So  that  the  felons  have  many  circumstances  in 
their  favour.  It  is  in  the  villages,  the  recluse  villages,  where  the 
greatest  cruelties  are  committed.  Here,  then,  in  this  contrast  be- 
tween the  treatment  of  the  WORKING  FELON  and  that  of  the 
.WORKING  HONEST  MAN,  we  have  a  complete  picture  of  the 
present  state  of  England ;  that  horrible  state  to  which,  by  slow- 
degrees,  this  once  happy  country  has  been  brought. 

2.  That  this  has  been  caused  by  the  taxes.  Look  at  the  progress 
of  the  taxes,  which  amounted  to  7,000,000/.  a  year,  when  the  pre- 
sent king  was  born,  and  which  now  amount  to  60,000,000/.  a  year. 
Malt,  hops,  sugar,  tea,  soap,  candles,  tobacco,  every  thing  neces- 
sary to  the  labouring  man,  is  taxed  so  as  to  make  him  pay  for  them 
three  times  as  much  as  he  would  pay  if  there  were  no  taxes  on  them: 
because,  besides  the  taxes,  there  is  the  monopoly.  Just  in  propor- 
tion  as  the  taxes  have  increased,  the  misery  has  increased ;  thus 
it  has  been  in  all  countries,  and  thus  it  has  been  in  this,  and  thus 
it  always  must  be.    No  matter  on  whom  the  taxes  are  laid:  each 


1st  November,  1830.  101 

class  shifts  them  from  its  own  shoulders  to  those  of  the  class  next 
beneath ;  the  landlord  to  those  of  the  farmer,  for  instance,  the 
farmer  to  those  of  the  labourer,  and  him  they  press  to  the  earth. 
In  like  manner  the  big  merchant  and  ship-owner  shift  them  off  to 
the  shoulders  of  the  manufacturer  and  master  mechanic,  and  they 
to  the  working  people,  and  they  are  pressed  to  the  earth. 

3.  Thai  while  those  who  work  have  beeiiy  and  are,  half- starving, 
those  who  live  on  the  taxes  have  been,  and  are,  wallowing  in  luxury 
and  splendour.  We  know  that  it  has  been  proved,  in  the  House  of 
Commons  itself,  that  113  Privy  Councillors  receive  amongst  them, 
yearly,  out  of  the  taxes,  650,000/.;  that  is  to  say,  these  113  men 
receive  more  in  one  year  than  would  maintain  32,000  labourers' 
families,  consisting  of  160,000  souls  !  And  this  is  exclusive  of  the 
bishops  and  the  members  of  the  Royal  Family  who  are  in  the 
Privy  Council.  This  is  more  money  than  it  has  taken  to  defray 
the  expense  of  the  whole  of  the  civil  government  of  America  for  the 
last  twenty  years  !  The  two  families  of  Grenville  and  Dundas  have 
received  more  in  sinecures  and  pensions ,  during  the  last  forty  years, 
than  it  has  taken  to  support  and  carry  on  the  whole  of  the  civil 
government  of  America  during  that  forty  years.  But,  we  must 
have  something  more  full  here  :  we  must  have  that  information 
which  my  book  of  *^ Splendid  Paupers'*  gives  us.  It  is  a  report 
published  by  the  House  of  Commons,  in  1808 ;  and,  though  I  have 
often  appealed  to  it,  I  must  appeal  to  it  again  now.  It  is  the  Aris- 
tocracy, and  not  the  Royal  Family,  that  has  made  the  people  so 
miserable.  The  Aristocracy  lakes  away  the  fruit  of  the  labour  of 
us  all.  It  does  it  in  various  shapes  and  ways;  but, pay  attention  to 
the  curious  specimens  that  I  am  now  about  to  lay  before  you,  I 
laid  the  greater  part  of  it  before  my  readers  thirteen  years  ago, 
just  after  the  Dungeon  and  Gagging  Bills  were  passed ;  but,  mil- 
lions of  children  have  become  men  and  women  since  that  year,  and 
some  who  then  read  may  have  forgotten ;  and  every  word  of  it 
ought  always  to  be  fresh  in  the  mind  of  every  man  and  woman 
in  England.  After  describing  a  report,  made  by  a  Committee,  in 
1817,  in  order  to  pacify  the  people,  after  the  passing  of  the  Dun- 
geon and  Gagging  Bills,  I  proceed  to  give  a  specimen  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  Aristocracy  took  away  the  earnings  of  the  people. 
Pray  read,  now,  especially  if  you  be  a  young  man,  and  then  feel  as 
you  ought  to  feel. 

« 

The  Sinecures  in  the  Colonies  amount  to  76,546/.  a  year, 
exclusive  of  those  in  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  the  Isle  of  France, 
and  Malta,  which  probably  amount  to  as  much  more ;  for, 
many  of  the  Noble  Lords  and  their  sons,  and  a  great  many  of 
the  Right  Hon.  and  Hon.  Gentlemen,  fill  the  offices  of  Clerks,  Har- 
hour 'Masters,  Naval- Officers,  Tide- Waiters,  Collectors,-Surveyois, 
&c.  &c.  in  those  countries,  which  countries  they  have  never  seen, 
except  upon  the  map,  if  they  have  seen  them  even  there.  Some  of 
these  offices  are  filled  by  women,  and  hyjine  Ladies  too;  and  some 
by  children;  but,  then,  these  children  are  of  high  bloody  and  of 
course  they  have  extraordinary  faculties. 


102  Two-penny  Tuasih; 

i  Without  going"  an  inch  further,  then,  we  have  Sinecures  to  the 
amount  of  400,000/.  a  year.  But,  was  it  Sinecures  alone  that  we 
complained  of?  No;  we  complained  of  *  Sinecures,  Pensions^ 
and  Grants,  wot  fully  merited  l)y  well-known  puhlic  services.'  Now 
of  Pejisions  and  Grants,  there  are  in  the  ofiTicial  account  before  me. 
Eleven  hundred  and  nine  names,  receiving  in  the  whole  642,6211, 
a  year!  And,  observe  well,  that  1  have  not  included  here  one 
single  person,  who  has  any  pretension  to  puhlic  mei'it  of  any 
kind  whatsoever,  except  the  ^Late  Foreign  Ministers,*  and  it  is 
very  clear  that  they  ought  to  have  no  pensions  at  all.  They  are 
paid  enormous  salaries  while  in  service  ;  their  expenses  going  and 
"coming  are  all  paid ;  they  have  an  enormous  service  of  plate  as  an 
out-lit,  which  they  keep ;  and,  when  they  have  finished  their  em- 
ployment what  right  have  they  to  any-thing  more  ?  When  a  man 
has  served  his  master  for  a  year,  or  for  twenty  years,  does  not  the 
master  cease  to  pay  him  as  soon  as  he  ceases  to  work?  When  a 
war  is  over,  are  not  the  soldiers  sent  away  without  any  pay  for  the 
rest  of  their  lives,  except  in  the  case  of  wounds,  and  \)ihd,t  foreign 
minister  gets  wounded  ?  The  officers  of  the  army  have,  indeed, 
half-pay,  but,  then,  they  have  bought  their  commissions  ;  and,  be- 
sides, they  have  been  in  the  service  so  long  that  they  are  capable 
of  being  in  no  other  sort  of  employ;  and,  in  the  navy,  they  are 
actually  bred  up  to  the  business  from  their  infancy.  Why,  then, 
these  immense  sums  to  the  late  foreign  Ministers,  whose  bodies 
are  as  strong,  and  who  can  find  employment  the  same  as  before  ? 
Besides,  no  other  nation  wastes  its  means  in  this  way.  The 
American  foreign  Ministers  receive,  while  on  service,  each  of  them 
about  fl^/ifA  jpar^  as  much  per  yea;*  as  Canning  received  per  yeax 
while  he  was  at  Lisbon,  and  they  receive  7io  pensions  after  their 
employment  ceases.  But,  then,  the  American  people  have  not  the 
satisfaction  to  see  such  men  as  Canning  rolling  in  his  chariot, 
while  they  eat  grains  and  butter-milk!  The  American  people 
have  not  the  honour  to  pay  20s.  a  bushel  for  English  salt ;  but,  on 
the  contrary,  I  now  actually  pay  2s.  6d.  English  money  for  that 
very  salt  for  which  I  used  to  give  20^.  a  bushel  in  London,  and 
196'.  a  bushel  at  Botley.  People  here  give  salt  to  their  cattle  in 
great  abundance  and  to  surprising  advantage ;  they  take  their  hay 
in  sometimes  almost  green,  and  throw  salt  amongst  it,  which 
makes  it,  they  say,  as  good  as  hay  made  in  the  general  way.  Yet 
this  very  salt  comes  from  England,  yea,  is  made  in  that  same 
England,  where  a  poor  man  can  hardly  get  salt  to  use  with  his 
potatoes  I  But,  then,  the  Americans,  as  1  said  before,  have  not 
the  honour  to  have  Sinecure  Place-men,  Big  Pensioners,  Great 
Grantees,  and  a  long  list  of  *  Late  Foreign  Ministers,'  though  the 
foreign  affairs  of  the  country  are  conducted  with  more  ability  than 
those  of  any  other  nation  in  the  whole  world.  As  a  proof  of  this, 
compare  the  public  papers  of  the  American  Foreign  Ministers 
with  the  papers  of  Castlereagh,  Canning,  Wellesley,  or  any  of  the 
rest  of  them.  Besides,  the  American  Foreign  Ministers  are  always 
amongst  the  very  first  men  in  the  country  for  talent,  wisdom,  and 
integrity.    Of  the  five  Pkesidents,  three  have  formerly  been 


1st  November,  1830.  103 

Foreign  Mi  ulsters.  And,  it  is  to  men  like  these  that  the  Americans 
give  about  a  fifth  part  as  much  as  we  give  to  such  men  as  Can- 
ning and  Frere  !  But,  then,  the  people  of  America  do  not  live 
upon  butter-milk  and  grains  ;  nor  do  they  live  upon  tea  and  po- 
tatoes. 

If,  indeed,  our  Foreign  Ministers  were  to  serve  'till  they  were 
worn  out,  as  a  soldier  or  sailor  must   (if  not  wounded)  in  order 
to  get  a  pension,  the  evil   would  not  he  so  great ;  because  it  is 
clear,  that  we  never  could  have  above  one  or  two  at  a  time  of  these 
gentlemen  to  keep.    But  the  fact  is  just  the  contrary.     Our  Fo- 
reign Ministers  serve  only  two  or  three  years y  and  then  home  they 
come  and  have  a  pension  for  life ;  and,  indeed,  it  is  perfectly  no- 
torious, that  the  younger  sons  of  those  who  have  seats,  are  thus 
sent  abroad  to  stay  two  or  three  years  in  order  to  he  fastened  upon, 
the  nation  for  life  I     So   that  there  is  always  a  long  list  of  these 
^  Late  Foreign   Ministers'^'     and,    in    the    account   before   me, 
there  are   no   Jess  than  forty-seven  of  these   persons,  receiving; 
51,589/.  a  year  out  of  the  earnings  of  the  people,  who  are  in  the 
deepest  misery  for  want  of  food  and  clothing  !     There  was  one  of 
the  Wynnes  sent  to  Dresden  for  four  years,  from  1803  to  1807, 
for  which  he  has  ever  since  been  receiving  a  pension  of  1,200/. 
a  year!      This   is   Henry    Watkin    Williams    Wynne.    Not 
*  Squeaking  Wynne,'  but  a  brother  of  his,  and  brother  also  to 
Sir  fVatkin,  \\\\o  \%  so  famed  for  the  loyalty,  ssith  which  he  is 
said  to  have  been  inspired,  during  the  last  war.    Faith  '.  this  loy». 
alty  was  no  such  foolish  thing  for   Sir  Watkin's  family  I     There 
are  people  who  laugh  at  these  Wynnes  1  but,  the  Wynnes  might, 
with  much  more  reason,  laugh  at  them.     This  grave  Embassador 
was  about  twenty-one  years  of  age  when  he  went  to  Dresden. 
He  is,  of  course,  now  about  thirty-five  ;  and  if  the  system  were 
to  go  on,  till  he  were  threescore  and  ten   years  old,  he   would 
receive  47,600Z.  m  principal  money  ;  and,  if  we  were  to  reckon,  as 
we  ought,  the  interest  and  compound  interest,  he  would  receive 
155,400/.  for  his  four  years  of  service  at  Dresden!    Besides  a 
thumping  5«/ar?/ while  he  was  there !    This  is  no  visionary  idea, 
for  in  the  same  list,  there  is  a  John  Osborne,  a  relation  of  the 
Duke  of  Leeds,  who  was  envoy  at  this  same  petty  Court  of  Dres- 
den four  years,  from  1771  to  1775,  and  he  received  a  pension  of 
800/.  a  year  up  to  1808  (the  date  of  the  account  now  before  me)  ; 
so  that,  in  1808,  this  gentleman  had  received,  in  principal  money ^ 
26,400/.,  besides  his  salary  for  four  years'  Envoyship,  and,  if  he  be 
alive  now,  he  has  received  33,600/.  for  the  four  years*  service.  The 
interest  and  compound  interest,  which  always  oz/g'A#  to  be  reckoned 
in  these  cases,  would  ujake  his   sum  surpass   100,000/.  for  four 
years*  envoyship  at  Dresden,  besides  his  salary  for  the  four  years. 
I  find  a  Richard  Shepherd  upon  this  list,  who  is  our  friend  the 
great  law  man's  son.  This  person  was  Charge  (T  affaire  at  Munich 
for  two  years,  for  which  he  has  been  receiving  a  pension  of  250/.  a 
year/(»r  18  ^ear5  already  ;  and,  if  his  father  can  find,  law  enough 
to  uphold  the  system,  he  may  receive  it,  or  a  bigger  pension,  lor 
forty  years  longer,  if  so  long  he  shall  live  I 


104  Two-penny  Trash  5 

It  is  farcical  to  pretend  that  these  pensions  are  given  for  public 
so^ices.  These  are  able  men,  or  they  are  not;  if  they  fl)*e,  why 
not  employ  them  instead  of  new  ones.  If  they  are  not,  how  can 
they  merit  a  pension  as  late  foreign  ministers  ?  I  think  it  would 
puzzle  brother  Shepherd  himself  to  get  clear  of  this  dilemma. 

N9,  no  I  the  Reformers  prayed  for  the  abolition,  and  at  once 
too,  of  *all  Sinecures,  Pensions,  and  Grants,  not  fully  merited  by 
well-known  public  services  ;*  and,  of  course,  they  prayed  for  the 
abolition  of  the  expense  of  51,589/.  a  year,  amongst  the  other  sums, 
paid  annually  to  pensioners  and  grantees. 

1  have  included  in  my  above  enumeration  and  statement  not 
one  name,  not  one  sum,  that  comes  fairly  under  the  head  of  real 
public  services.  There  may,  indeed,  be  persons  to  differ  from  me 
in  opinion  as  to  what  SiVe public  services,  and  what  are  not  public 
services.  These  persons,  such  as  the  sublime  and  profound  Lord 
Milton  for  instance,  would  probably  contend,  that  the  notorious 
iBuRKE*s  services  were  really  of  a  public  nature  and  of  immense 
national  benefit.  Of  course,  he  would  think,  that,  though  Burke 
got  a  pension  of  3000/.  a  year  for  his  own  life,  and  1200/.  a  year 
for  the  life  of  Mrs.  Burke,  and,  besides  these,  a  grant  of  2500/.  a 
yearfor^t'e  other  lives  ;  of  course.  Lord  Milton  would  think,  that 
public  niouey  could  not  possibly  be  better  laid  out !  This  last  grant 
is  a  most  curious  thing.  T  he  pension  for  his  own  life  and  then  one 
for  Mrs.  Burke's  life  after  him  are  nothing  new.  It  is  no  more 
than  those  provident  gentlemen  and  good  husbands,  Messrs.  Long, 
HuskissoUy  Nepean,  King,  and  hundreds  of  others,  have  done. 
But,  to*  provide  beforehand  a  grant  of  public  money  to  be  left  to 
Executors  at, the  Grantee's  death,  is  really  something  more  shame- 
less than!  should  have  expected  even  the  shameless  Burke  to  ask  ; 
and,  I  leave  the  world  to  guess  at  the  state  of  abject  subjection  in 
>vhich  Mr.  Pitt  was  to  the  Boroughmongers,  when  he  could  give 
his  consent  to  such  a  profligate  grant,  and  that  too  to  the  man 
whom,  of  all  men  living,  he  despised  the  most.  This  grant  is  so 
great  a  curiosity,  that  1  will  transcribe  it  word  for  word. 

*■  Grant  tor  the  Executors  of  the  late  Edmund  Burke,  annual 

*  amount,  2500/.      By  authority  of  two  patents,  dated  24th  Oct. 

*  1793.     That  is  to  say,   1160/.  during  the  life  of  Lord  Royston 

*  and  the  Hon.  and  Rev.  Anchild  Grey.     And,   1340/.  during  the 

*  life  of  the  Princess  Amelia,  Lord  Althorp,   and   Wm.    Caven-t 

*  dish,  Esq.' 

Now,  whether  a  calculation  of  these  lives  were  made  and  the 
Grant  sold,  as  it  might  be,  as  soon  as  it  was  obtained  ;  or,  whether 
it  really  3vas  bequeathed  to  ^Executors,*  perhaps  Lord  Milton 
the  sublrine,  or  Mr.  William  Elliot  the  beautiful,  may  be  able 
to  tell ;  but,  I  rather  more  than  believe,  that  it  was  my  exposure 
of  this  vile  transaction,  in  a  Register  of  November  last,  which 
drew  forth  from  the  latter,  in  the  month  of  January,  those  vehe- 
ment charges  against  the  publishers  of  *  Weekly  Venom  ;'  and, 
at  any  rate,  I  am  quite  sure,  that  the  nation  continues  to  pay  this 
2500/.  a  year  to  somebody,  and  that  it  will   continue  to  pay  it  as 


1st  November,  1830.  105 

long  as  Lord  Milton  and  Mr.  William  Elliot  shall  have  seats  in 
Parliament. 

What!  And  are  there  men  in  the  world,  not  notorious  robbers, 
to  approve  of  such  things  as  these !  *  Ah  !  *  says  the  Courier, 
*  but  they  are  vested  rights ;  and,  if  you  begin  by  seizing  them, 
you  may  end  by  seizing  people's  goods  in  their  houses*  If  tliis  be 
all  we  want  to  authorize  the  seizure ,  we  may  seize  away;  for  how 
many  thousand  persons  have  had  their  beds  sold  from  under  them 
to  pay  the  taxes  since  this  grant  was  made  \  Thus  the  beginning 
to  seize  has  actually  taken  place.  But,  what  are  we  to  seize}  The 
grant  is  nothing  in  substance.  We  want  to  seize  nothing.  We 
only  want  not  to  be  compelled  to  pay  the  amount  of  it  any  longer. 
We  want  to  be  able  to  live  without  Burke's  executors  coming  to 
seize  our  goods.  We  want  not  to  be  obliged  to  go  naked  and 
hungry  in  consequence  of  our  earnings  being  taken  away  in  this 
manner.  And,  because  we  complain,  that  60,000^.  of  the  money, 
raised  in  taxes  upon  our  beer,  soap,  candles,  &c.,  have  been  given 
to  this  BuRKE^  are  we  to  be  called  Jacobins  and  Revolutionists  1 
He,  his  wife,  and  his  executors,  have  already  received  about 
66,000/.  of  principal  money  out  of  the  taxes,  and  as  the  lives  are 
some  of  them  very  young  yet,  the  executors  may,  possibly,  receive 
as  much  more,  if  we  reckon  the  interest,  as  we  ought,  this 
hireling  writer  ;  the  trumpeter  of  that  war,  a  *  transition  from 
which  to  peace*  has,  upon  the  showing  of  the  Borough  mongers 
themselves,  produced  unparalleled  misery  throughout  a  whole 
nation  ;  if  we  reckon  the  interest,  this  base  man,  who  prostituted 
his  great  talents  to  the  vilest  and  most  wicked  of  purposes,  will, 
in  the  whole,  if  the  system  go  on,  have  received  by  himself  and 
his  executors,  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  the  public  money  ;  and,  be- 
cause we  complain  of  this,  we  are  to  be  held  forth  as  promulgating 
sedition  and  blasphemy  ! 

The  late  Marquis  of  Buckingham  has  not  received  less,  from 
his  sinecure,  than  700,000/.  of  principal  money ;  the  Marquis 
Camden  700,000/. ;  Lord  Arden  not  less  than  500,000/.;  the  Sey- 
mours not  less  than  400,000/.;  Gamier  not  less  than  250,000/.; 
the  Knoxes  400,000/. ;  Lord  Hobart  400,000/. ;  the  Dukes  of  Rich- 
mond, Grafton,  Marquis  Bute,  Lord  Melville,  and  others,  each 
nearly  half  a  million  at  least;  and  many,  many  others  200,000/. 
and  100,000/.  each.  Some  50,000/.,  and  so  on;  till,  if  we  take  a 
view  of  the  last  57  years,  since  His  Majesty  has  been  upon  the 
throne,  and  take  in  all  the  grants  of  money,  given  for  no  known 
public  services^  we  shall  find  here  what  it  is  that  has  swelled  up 
what  is  called  the  National  Debt,  But,  of  this  we  will  speak 
more  at  large  by  and  by,  when  we  have  asked  a  little  more 
about  the  public  services  of  the  persons  who  receive  the  immense 
sums  of  money  of  which  we  have  been  speaking. 

Can  any  one  imagine  what  public  services  were  ever  rendered 
by  any  oi  the  persons  just  named?  And  by  fhe  Marchioness  of 
Stafford?  Yet  her  ladyship  is  down  for  300/.  a  year,  though  her 
husband  has  scores  of  thousands,  perhaps  hundreds  of  thousands, 
a  year  in  his  own  estates.  Lady  Grenville  of  course,  being  bone  of 

r  5 


106  Two-penny  Trash; 

bone  and, flesh  of  flesh  with  her  Lord,  has  rendered  what  some 
people  might  call  services  ;  but  have  they  not  been  pretty  decently 
paid  for  in  that  husband's  enormoms  salaries  ;  and  in  the  118,000/. 
of  principal  7nonei/,  which  he  has  received  from  his  Sinecure  as 
Auditor  of  the  Exchequer  ?  And  we  are  to  be  called  seditious,  are 
we,  because  we  complain  of  these  things  ?  We  are  to  be  muzzled 
and  choked,  that  these  people  may  not  even  be  disturbed  by  our 
cries  I  My  God  !  And,  is  this  always  to  go  on  ?  There  is  Ladif 
Augusta  Murray,  now  called  D' Amilandy  who  was  married  at 
Rome  to  the  Duke  of  Sussex.  A  very  virtuous  lady,  I  dare  say,  but 
what  has  she  done  to  merit  M 17/.  a  year  out  of  the  taxes  ?  This 
lady  has  not  rejceived,  in  this  way,  less  than  50,000/.  of  the  public 
money,  principal  money;  and,  for  what?  Mrs.  Huskissou  is  to 
have  a  pension  after  her  .husband's  death  :  and,  for  ivhat  ?-  He 
has  a  pension  of  1200/.  a  year  for  life,  when  he  is  out  of  place; 
so  has  Lord  Minto,  and  the  family  of  this  latter  are  all  provided 
for  out  of  the  taxes.  Now,  what  have  they  done  to  merit  this  of  us 
who  pay  the  taxes  ? 

There  is  no  end  to  these  instances.  Only  think  of  Cumber- 
land, the  'play  writer ,  having  had  a  pension,  and  his  daughters 
now  being  upon  the  list  of  those  who  live  upon  the  sums  which 
>ve  pay  on  our  beer,  soap,  ^c.  There  are  whole  troops  oi  fine 
Uidies ;  whole  families  of  children,  of  whose  fathers  we  never  even 
heard,  who  are  kept  out  of  the  fruit  of  our  labour.  Let  us  take  a 
few  instances  as  they  stand  in  the  Account. 

•  Grant,  by  Warrant  dated  20th   May,   1799,  to  W.  Borrows, 

*  Esq.,  in  trust  for  Mary  and  Maria  Hun,  during  their  lives  and 

*  the  survivor  of  them,  for  500/.  a  year.* 

'""These  are  the  mother  and  half-sister  of  Canning.  Great  merit 
in  his  eyes  perhaps  ;  but  what  have  they  doue/o?'  us  ?  Mrs.  Hun, 
they  say,  was  once  a  most  excellent  play-actress,  and,  doubtless,  a 
very  worthy  woman  ;  but,  in  the  name  of  all  that  is  false  and  cor- 
rupt, I  ask  wiiat  claim  she  has  to  the  taxes  that  we  pay  upon  our 
beer  and  candles  and  tea? 

*  Grant  of  400/.  a  year  to  the  Reverend   H.  Hobart  and   Mr. 

*  John  Sullivan  in  trust  for  Jive  children  of  the  late  George  Ho- 

*  bart,  Esq.  during  the  lives  of  the  five  children,  and  after  the 

*  death  of  four,  200/.  a  year  for  the  survivor.* 

'  ^  Pension  to  Lord  Fitzharris,  to  begin  at  the  death  of  his 
father,*  the  Earl  of  Malmsbury.  There  is  a  provident  young 
man ! 

A  grant  in  trust  for 

*  Mary  Anne  Herries,  a  year ,     £300 

*  Catherine  Herries •  • «        150 

*  Isabella  Maria  Herries 150 

*  Julia  Mary  Herries    ..............     150 

*  Lady  Louisa  Paget.  •.....•.....••.     300 

*  Same  (now  Lady  L.  Erskine) 300  * 

This  is  a  sister  of  the  Marquis  of  Angles ea* 


1st  November,  1830.  IQ7 

*  A  grant  to  Lord  Sydney  and  the  Rev.  T.  Selwyn,  in  trust,  for 

*  Charlotte  Selwyu,  a  year £100 

'  Albina  Frances  Selwyu 100 

*  Maria  Louisa  Selwyn , ♦  , ,  100 

*  Henrietta  E.  Selwyn 100' 

These,  I  suppose,  are  the  daughters  of  this  Reverend  Gentleman 
who  is  a  relation  of  Lord  Sidney.  They  may  be  called  lucki/  girls, 
indeed  :  and,  certainly,  they  have  got  very  pretty  names;  but,  let 
us  come  to  conscience  with  the  Reverend  Gentleman,  and  ask  him 
vihdLtrigJit  he  has  to  fasten  his  four  daughters  upon  our  backs  ?  What 
justice  there  is  in  taking  away  our  bread  and  giving  it  to  his 
daughters,  while  we  are  reduced  to  grains  and  j)otatoes?  Whether 
he  can  find  any  precept  for  this  in  that  Gospel  which  he  is  so  well 
paid  for  teaching  ?  And  whether,  Avhile  these  things  exist,  it  be 
not  monstrously  impudent  in  his  brother  Malthus,  to  pretend, 
that,  to  relieve  the  poor  is  to  encourage  population  improperly, 
and  that  the  poor  labourers  have  no  right  to  relief  for  their  hungry 
children,  seeing,  '  that  it  is  their  oivn  fault  if  they  have  more 
children  than  they  can  support  out  of  their  own  labour?'  I  should 
like  to  hear  what  brother  Selwyn  would  say,  if  these  questions 
were  put  home  to  him,  as  they  doubtless  will  be  one  of  these  days. 
I  dare  say  brother  Selwyn  is  a  Magistrate^  and  that  he  regards  my 
Register  as  both  seditious  and  blasphemous, 

*  Grant  to 

*  Anna  Maria,  Duchess  Dowager  of 

Newcastle,  a  year , .  £1,000 

*  Lady  Sarah  Napier 368 

*  Louisa  Mary  Napier 162 

*  Emily  Louisa  Auij;usta  Napier. . . .  162 

•*  Grant  in  ttiist  to  Sir  George  Osborn  and  John  Ley,  for 
'  Jane  Wraxall £400 

*  Grant  to 

'  Sarah  Pierson • .  £27 

*  M  ary  Pierson 27 

'  Diana  Anne  Piersojj      ••..  27 

*  Frances  Pierson 27 

*  Reverend  Thomas  Pierson    130  ' 

Here  is  another  Reverend  Gentleman's  family  quartered  upon 
us  for  life  I 

^  Grant  to  Robert  Halifax  and  Catherine  Halifax,  widow,  in 
trust  for 

*  Gertrude  Halifax,  a  year    £60 

*  Charlotte  Halifax...". 60 

*  Marianne  Hahf ax    60 

*  Caroline  Halifax    , 60 

*  Catherine  Halifax 60 

*  Elizabeth  Halifax ' 60* 


108  Two-penny  Trash; 

A  pretty  little  snug:  covey,  who  take  just  as  much  as  would 
maintain  ta-'clve  good  labourers  and  their  families ,  consisting  of 
sixti/  persons.  And,  pray,  Mr.  [Malthus,  has  not  the  poor  la- 
hourer's  children,  whose  father  has,  all  his  life  long,  been  paying* 
taxes  and  raising  food,  as  good  a  claim  of  relief  as  these  Halifaxes 
have  ?  You,  Sir,  would  check  the  population  of  the  labouring 
people;  but  you  say  not  one  word  about  this  population.  You  say, 
that  the  labourer  has  no  right  to  demand  relief  out  of  the  rates  ; 
and,  that  he  should  be  told,  that  unless  he  can  support  his  children, 
he  should  take  care  not  to  have  them.  Why  do  you  not  say  the 
same  to  the  Cumberlands,  the  Selwyns,  the  Napiers,  the  Piersons, 
the  Halifaxes,  the  Herrieses,  the  Ponsonbys,  and  hundreds  upon 
hundreds  of  others?  But,  the  truth  is,  that  the  labourer* s  earn- 
ings  are  taken,  in  great  part,  away  from  him,  or  he  would,  as 
formerly,  stand  in  need  of  no  relief,  except  in  cases  of  accident. 

*  Grant  to  Charles  Abbott  and  Lord  Rendlesham,  in  trust  for 
Eleanor  Madelaine  TVickharti,  per  year,  675// 

Now  what  has  this  good  lady  done  for  us  ?  Her  husband  is 
loaded  with  pensions  besides.  His  exploits  at  Basle,  indeed,  may, 
by  some,  be  deemed  services;  but  what  has  this  good  woman  done  ? 
Did  she  assist  him  in  his  operations  at  Basle? 

And  why  should  the  Baroness  Cathcart  have  500Z.  a  year  ?  or 
Catherine  Popham  200Z.  ?  Or  Seizan  De  Meuron,  a  foreigner  (in 
the  teeth  of  positive  law),  393/.  a  year?  Why  should  the  three 
Misses  Barlow,  the  two  Ladies  Howard,  the  three  Misses  Harnage, 
have  pensions  to  be  paid  bv  us,  who  never  heard  of  their  names 
before?  Why  should  Ernestine  Lawrence  have  200/.  of  our  money 
every  year,  except  on  account  of  her  or  his  pretty  foreign  name? 
for,  1  really  do  not  know  whether  it  be  the  name  of  a  woman 
or  a  man. 

*  Pension  to  Sir  Luke  Wettestein,  in  ti-ust  for  Sir  Luke 
Schwab's  daughters,  per  year,  200/.* 

Tliese  are  foreigners:  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  that.  The 
Prince  of  Mecklinburgh  Strelitz  is  in  this  list  for  2000/.  a 
year.  La  Comtesse  D'Alton,  300/.  a  year.  There  are  many 
other  foreigners  on  the  Pension  List.  And  yet,  the  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment, in  virtue  of  which  the  present  family  sit  on  the  throne,  de- 
clares, in  the  must  clear  and  most  positive  manner,  that  no  one, 
-who  is  not  a  NATURAL- BORN  subject  of  the  King  of  England, 
shall  hold  ?i  pension,  or  any  place  of  profit  or  of  trust,  under  the 
Crown.  There  is  no  act  of  naturalization  which  can  remove  this 
impediment ;  and  yet,  this  great  law,  made,  as  its  title  imports, 
for  the  preservation  of  our  rights  and  liberties,  has  been  paid  no 
more  regard  to  by  the  Ministers  than  if  it  had  been  an  old  ballad/ 
They  violate  it  erery  day;  ihey  live  in  a  continual  violation  of  it. 
They  talk  of  illegal  practices,  indeed !  They  bring  men  to  pu- 
nishment for  violation  of  the  laws  !  What,  is  there  no  punishment 
for  them,  then  ?  Are  they  to  violate  the  laws  with  impuyiity  ;  and 
that,  too,  in  the  most  barefaced  and  most  insolent  manner  ?  Are 
they  never  to  be  brought  to  justice  ;  and,  if  we  charge  them  with 


1st  November,  1830.  109 

these  violations  of  the  laws ;  nay,  if  we  humbly  complain, 
and  pray  that  the  violations  may  cease,  are  they  for  ever  to 
charge  us  with  sedition  and  blasphemy  for  so  doing;,  and  to  ride  off 
themselves  with  impunity  ?  1  take  ray  facts  from  an  official  ac- 
count, made  out  by  the  Ministers  and  laid  before  the  Parliament. 
What  audacity  I  What  a  contempt  of  the  law,  to  dare  to  lay  be- 
fore the  Parliament  these  numerous  proofs  of  a  gross  violation  of 
it  I  But,  indeed,  the  Ministers  knew  well  who  it  was  that  they 
were  submitting  this  account  to.  They  would  have  taken  special 
care  not  to  have  laid  such  an  account  before  a  Parliament  chosen 
by  the  people  at  large ;  and  here  it  is  that  we  see  the  i^eal  reason 
for  all  the  opposition  to  a  Reform. 

There  is  a  Mr.  Joseph  Hunt,  who  was,  some  years  ago, 
obliged  to  abscond  in  consequence  of  a  misapplication  of  thepublic 
money ;  that  very  man  has  two  pensions,  amounting  to  1037/.  a 
year!  And  this  is  a  reward  iov  public  services  !  *  The  Right  Hun. 
Thos.  Steel'  has  his  sinecure  of  l,f>33/.  a  year,  though  he,  too, 
was  proved  to  have  misapplied  the  public  money,  to  give  to  his 
conduct  the  mildest  of  terms.  Is  not  this  a  shame  ?  And,  are  we 
to  be  crammed  into  dungeons  if  we  complain  of  these  things  ?  We 
will  complain  of  them  j  and,  we  will  persevere,  till  we  obtain 
justice. 

The  Hon.  Robert  C.  Clements  is  a  Searclier  and  Packer  of 
the  Ports  in  Ireland  ;  Sir  Richard  Hardinge  is  Surveyor-  General 
of  the  Ports;  Sir  George  Shee  is  Receiver  -  G  eneral ;  Hon.  Edw. 
Acheson  is  Customer  and  Colleclor ;  two  of  the  notorious  Beresfords 
are  Storekeepers;  John  Beresfurd  and  James  D.  Beresford  are 
fp^ine- Tasters ;  Lord  Robert  Seymour  is  a.,Craner  and  fVhurfinger ; 
Earl  Rodeo  is  another  Searcher  ;  Right  Hon,  Earl  of  Avoumore  is 
another  Searcher  and  Packer ;  the  Earl  of  Donoughmore  is  an- 
other Searcher  and  Packer;  Marquis  of  Drogheda  and  Mr.  Bag- 
well are  Muster -Masters -General.  All  this  is  in  Ireland,  and  fifty 
times  as  much  more.  It  is  notorious,  that  these  people  are  no 
such  thing  as  they  are  here  called  ;  but,  they  receive  amongst  them, 
on  account  of  these  pretended  occupations,  15,200/.  Mr.  Abbot, 
the  Speaker,  has,  for  many  years,  received  1,500/.  a  year  fur  keep- 
ing the  Signet  in  Ireland,  where  there  is  no  signet  to  be  kept.  The 
M'yndhams,  younger  sons  of  the  family  of  the  Earl  of  Egremont, 
hold  places  in  the  Colonies  that  yield  them  nearly  20,000/.  a  year. 
And,  what  for  ?  What  have  they  ever  done  for  the  country,  except 
to  help  to  ruin  it  by  voting  for  wars  and  loans  ?  Is  it  seditious,  is  it 
blasphemous,  to  complain  that  a  waste  like  this  is  made  of  the  peo- 
ple's labour,  and  that  these  two  Wyndhams  spend  of  the  nation's 
money  as  much  every  year  as  would  keep  a  thousand  labouring- 
families,  amounting  to  four  or  five  thousand  persons  ?  Is  this 
blasphemous  ?  It  is  indeed  most  horrible  blasphemy  to  attempt  to 
justify  such  wicked  acts  ;  and  this  is  a  sort  of  blasphemy  that  I 
hope  yet  to  see  punished. 

However,  let  us  get  on  a  little  with  our  broods  of  Pensioners : 
for,  it  is  very  material  to  expose  the  atrocious  falsehood,  that  these 
things  have  been  given  as  rewards  for  Public  Services, 


110  Two-penny  Trash; 

*  Grant,  dated  1807,  to  James  Earl  of  Lauderdale  and  others, 
*  in  trust  for 

'  Mary  Turner  Hay,  per  year,, £jOO 

*  Dorothy  Frances  Hay 100 

'  Hannah  Charlotte  Hay....,,. 100 

*  Elizabeth  Hay 100 

*  Jane  Hay 100 

'  Julian  Hay 100' 

And  the  curiosity  here  is,  that  these  pensions  are  to  continue 
till  these  ladies  shall  respectively  get  them  husbands!  or,  during 
pleasure  I  So  that  they  might  last  for  fifty  years  ;  as  they  would, 
if  the  system  lasted  so  long. 

'  Grant  to  Agnes  Clerk  Hay,  per  year  £100 

'  Arthur  Witham  Hay 100 

'Dorithia  Judith  Hay 100 

*  Maria  Hay '. 100 

<  Lewis  Hav 100 

*  Elizabeth  Hay 100* 

These  are  to  take  effect  when  the  mother  dies;  and  she  has  a 
pension  for  life  !  So,  thus  are  they  fastened  upon  the  nation  from 
•age  to  age ! 

'  Grant  to  Elizabeth  Cockburn,  per 

year £50 

*  Matilda  Cockburn 50 

'  Margaret  Cockburn  • 50 

*  Ann  Cockburn   50' 

These  are  to  begin  wnen  the  mother  dies,  who  has  a  pension 
for  life,  and  they  are  to  cease  at  marriage,  unless  his  Majesty  should 
otherwise  please  ! 

*  Grant  to  Marie  Claudine  Silphie  Duchess  Fitz-James,  200/. 
'  a  year,  grant  dated  22d  Sept.  1806.* 

This  is  so  very  audacious  a  thing  that  one  can  hardly  believe 
one's  own  eyes,  till  we  see  by  the  date,  that  it  was  the  WHIGS, 
the  precious  Whigs,  who  committed  this  act  of  profligate  violation 
of  law.  Tills  person  is  not  only  a  Frenchwoman^  the  wife  of  a 
Frenchmany  but  that  Frenchman  is  a  descendant,  as  his  name  im- 
ports, from  that  very  Ja?nes  the  Second  who  was  driven  from  the 
throne  of  England  to  make  way  for  the  present  family  !  And  this 
"very  Duke  Fitz-James's  father  had  been  one  of  the  aiders  and 
abettors  of  the  Pretender  !  Where  the  honest  Whigs,  honest  and 
faithful  Whigs,  looked  to  discover  the  Public  Serinces  which 
tempted  them  to  this  outrageous  breach  of  the  law,  they  will,  per- 
haps, by-and-by,  be  induced  to  tell  us. 

My  eye  happening  to  drop  upon  Marie  Claudine  Silphie  led  me 
away  from  vay  famUy  parties ;  and,  it  is  useless  to  return  to  them, 
unless  I  had  Parson  Malthus  by  the  ear  to  ask  him,  at  every 
moment,  why  he  does  not  apply  his  arguments  to  these  abominable 
lists  of  paupers  in  high  life.    He  would  deny  relief  to  the  labourer. 


1st  November,  1830.  Ill 

who- is  obliged  to  give  away  in  taxes  one  half  of  what  ought  to 
gt)  to  support  his  family  ;  but,  he  very  quietly  sees  these  swarms, 
who  never  have  worked  at  all,  receiving  relief  out  of  those  very 
taxes,  more  than  three-fourths  of  which  the  labouring  classes  pay  ! 

One  cannot  help  wondering  at  the  sharnelessness  of  Noblemen 
and  Gentlemen  in  suffering  themselves  to  be  called  Tide- Waiters, 
Harbour- Masters,  Searchers,  Packers,  Craners,  Clerks,  Wharfin- 
gers, Prothonotaries,  and  the  like;  or,  that  such  a  man  as  Lord 
Charles  Spencer,  a  brother  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  should 
suffer  himself  to  be  stuck  into  the  Pension  List  for  1,000/.  a  year, 
when  all  the  world  knows,  that  he  never  performed  the  smallest 
quantity  of  public  service  in  his  life.  There  is  a  Baroness  who  is 
*  Sweeper  of  the  Mall  in  the  Park*  for  340/.  a  year ;  but,  what  is 
out  of  nature  as  well  as  shameless,  is,  that  the  SISTERS  of  the 
Earl  of  NoTTRiNGTON  are  with  him  joint  Clerk  of  the  Hanapert 

At  first,  when  1  looked  over  these  Lists  (for  there  are  forty- 
seven  separate  lists),  1  wondered  who  the  people  could  he.  The 
Brudenels,  the  Seymours,  the  Talbots,  the  Herberts,  Finches, 
Wyndhams,  Hays,  Cockburns,  Selwyns,  &c.  &c.  But  upon  closer 
examination,  I  found  the  far  greater  part  of  all  these  broods  of 
pensioners  belonging,  in  oneway  or  another, to  the  great  families  ; 
or,  in  other  words,  to  the  Borough mono:err,,  and  those  dependent 
upon  them.  It  is  true,  that  Lord  Fitzwiliiam  and  his  son  have  no 
places  or  pensions  ;  but,  Burkk,  their  grand  tool,  took  a  fine  bite 
out  of  our  flesh.  In  short,  we  have  only  to  look  at  the  immense 
sums  of  public  money,  which  are  expended  in  this  way,  and  observe 
well  who  it  is  that  really  has  the  disposing  of  these  sums,  to 
make  us  cease  to  wonder  at  the  desperate  deeds  which  are  resorted 
to  in  order  to  prevent  such  a  Reform  as  would  enable  the  people, 
by  their  real  representatives,  to  superintend  the  expending  of  the 
public  money. 

But,  though  the  amount  of  the  Sinecures,  Pensions,  and 
Grants,  merited  by  no  public  service  whatever,  is  enormous,  these 
form  only  a  part  of  what  the  Borough  families  receive  out  of  the 
taxes.  The  fat  things  of  that  great  gulf  of  expense,  the'  Army y 
are  almost  wholly  theirs.  The  post  of  Colonel  of  a  Regiment  is  a 
sinecure  in  fact;  and,  if  }ou  look  into  the  List,  you  will  not  find 
twenty,  out  of  nearly /wo  hundred,  which  are  not  in  the  hands  of 
the  Borough  families.  So  it  is  with  the  Staff.  So  it  is  as  to  those 
enormous  Sinecures,  the  Governorships  of  fortresses,  castles, 
islands,  provinces,  &c.,  &c.,  which  amount  to  immense  sums  ; 
and,  indeed,  if  you  consider  how  small  a  portion  of  the  money 
voted  for  the  army  really  is  wanted  for  the  soldiers,  you  must  see 
how  this  multitude  of  millions  have  gone,  and  how  they  still  go, 
and  must  go,  as  long  as  the  system  goes  on  unretormed. 

Now,  my  friends  (first  pulling  off  our  hats),  let  us  just  peep 
into  the  Church,  for  there  are  some  very  good  things  there.  There 
are  three  enormously  rich  Bishopricks,  Canterbury,  Durham,  and 
Winchester,  the  revenues  and  the  livings  to  be  given  in  which  are 
woril),  probably,  150,000/.  a  year.  The  first  of  these  is  held  by  a 
Cousin  of  the  Duke  of  Rutland ;  the  second  by  the  Uncle  ofT^scount 


112  Two-penny  Trash; 

JBarringtofi ;  and  the  third  by  the  Uncle  of  (he  Earl  of  Guildford. 
Then  out  of  the  rest,  twelve  are  held  by  the  relations  of  great 
Noble  Boroughmen  ;  so  that,  out  of  the  twenty-six  in  number, 
there  are  fifteen  in  the  h^nds  of  real  blood  relations  of  Borough 
owners,  or  Borough  Patrons  of  the  Noble  Order;  and  in  amount 
gfiwcow^  and  preferment,  these  fifteen  are  ten  times  as  great  as 
the  other  eleven.  So  that  the  Borough  families  have  ten  elevenths, 
at  least,  of  the  Bishopricks. 

Now,  let  us  suppose,  for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  that  the 
eleven  other  Bishopricks  are  filled  witho'ut  any  portion  of  Borough 
influence.  This  is  supposing  a  monstrous  deal ;  but,  -we  will,  for 
a  moment,  so  suppose.  The  Borough  families  form  about  one 
ten-thousandth  part  of  the  people  ;-  and,  will  any  wretch  alive, 
even  the  impudent  man  of  the  Courier,  pretend  to  believe,  that 
there  are  ten  times  ?}wre  piety  and  scholarship  in  this  ten 
thousandth  part^  than  in  all  the-other  nine  thousand  nine  hundred 
and  ninety-nine  parts  ?  What  has  been  proved  of  Bishopricks  ap- 
plies to  Livings,  or  Benefices  of  inferior  value.  All  the  rich  ones 
are  filled  by  the  relations,  or  dependents,  of  the  Borough  gentle- 
men; and  thus,  it)  reality,  the  /*?o/>er^^  of  the  Church  is  theirs 
almost  wholly.  As  to  the  Law,  that  other  great  department  of 
emolument,  power,  and  honours,  the  Borough  families  are  obliged 
to  be  content  with  jt?arro?^«^-^,  and  that  too  but  in  a  moderate  de- 
gree ;  for,  the  law  re^MiVe.v,  and  it  i^i// ^at;e,  TALENTS  and  IN- 
DUSTRY. Hence  we  have  seen  Wedderburn,  Thurlow,  Kenyon, 
Scott,  Mitford,  Law,  and  many  others^,  beat  their  way  up  from  the 
ragged  Bar  to  the  Peerage  ;  not,  indeed,  in  defiance  of  the  Borough 
gentlemen,  but,  at  the  same  time,  without  much  of  dependence 
upon  them  ;  and,  what  is  very  curi6us  to  observe,  that,  while  we 
see  all  the  other  rich  posts  filled  by  the  Borough  families,  they 
have  scarcely  ever  put  their  noses  into  the  active  posts  of  the  LaWy 
though  some  of  them  rain  showers.of  gold.  But,  though  it  is  very 
true,  that  an  Attorney  General,  a  Chief  Justice,  or  a  Lord  Chan- 
cellor, may,  by  mere  possibility,  be  a  superlative  villain,  it  is  im- 
possible that  he  can  be  a  fool. 

Observe,  however,  that  I  speak  only  of  the  active  posts  even  of 
the  Law;  for,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Borough  families  engross  no 
small  share  of  the  sinecure  emoluments  oi  that  profession  too.  But, 
while  in  the  Jrmy  and  the  Church  they  are  at  the  head,  in  the  law 
they  are  at  the  taiL  In  the  two  former,  they  are  Generals  and 
Commanders  and  Colonels  of  Regiments,  and  Bishops  and  Deans 
and  Archdeacons  and  Prebends.  But,  in  the  latter,  they  are  Pro- 
thonotaries.  Clerks,  Filazers,  Sealers  of  Wiits,  Ushers,  Door- 
keepers, &c.  In  the  two  former  they  are  decorated  with  the 
double  Epaulet  and  the  'j'ruucheon  ;  with  the  Mitre  and  the  Red- 
Thing  (1  do  not  know  what  they  call  it)  which  goes  over  the 
shoulders  above  the  surplus.  But,  in  the  Courts  of  Law,  while 
men  who  have  risen  from  **  the  Lower  Orders  *'  (as  they  call  us) 
are  decked  out  in  the  Big  Wigs  and  in  Purple  and  Scarlet  and 
Ermined  Robes,  those  high-blooded  gentry  stoop  to  the  camlet 
gown  and  the  wand.    The  Duke  or  Grafton,  for  instance,  is  the 


1st  November,  1830.  113 

Sealer  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  at  2,886/.  a  year,  while  the 
Honourable  Louisa  Browning  and  Ladi/  B,  Mostyn  are  Gustos 
Brevium  in  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas!  Lord  Walsingham  is 
in  the  petty  office  of  Comptroller  of  first-fruits  in  the  Court  of 
Exchequer  at  150/  a  year  ;  and  Arabella  Walker  Heueage  (a  re- 
lation o£the  Earl  of  Aylesford)  is  the  'CHIEF  USHER  I  A  pretty 
office  enouglr  for  a  high-blooded  Lady !  ^  Three  of  the  Moores, 
two  of  them  Clergymen,  and  all  relations  of  the  Earl  of  Mouilt- 
Cashel,  are  the  Register  in  the  Prerogative  Court,  at  3,670/.  a 
year,  while  an  honest  coal-merchant's  son  is  th^  Judge.  In  the 
Court  of  Chancery,  Lord  W.  Bentinck  fills  the  petty  office  of 
Clerk  of  the  Pipe,  though  he  is  the  son  of  a  Duke.  Thus  it  goes 
all  through  ;  and,  indeed,  so  very  fit  are  those  high -blooded  gentry 
for  high  stations  in  the  Arjni^  and  low  ones  in  the  Law,  that  many 
of  them  who  are  surprisingly  great  in  arms  are  compelled  to  stand 
in  camlet  gowns  and'bare-headed  before  the  Judges  !  This  Lord 
William  Hentinck,  for  instance,  who  is  Clerk  of  the  Pipe  in  the 
Court  of  Chancery,  and  part  of  whose  office  it  is  to  attend  the  man 
wha  holds  up  the  tail  of  tKe  Lord  Chancellor's  Robe  when  he  enters 
and  leaves  the  Court;  yes,  this  very  identical  Clerk  of  the  Pipe  is 
a  Lieutenant- Genei'al  in  the  jlrmy,  though,  when  in  his  other 
office,  he  assists  the  train-bearer* to  a  Coal  Merchant's  Son,  as  the 
present  Lord  Chancellor  is.  Very  nearly  the  same  is  the  case  in 
numerous  instances.  Even  the  **  Great  Duhe  "  himself  is  nothing 
more  than  a  Rewemhranctr  in  the  Court  of  Exchequer  in  Ireland. 
It  is  curious,  too,  that,  now  and  then  one  of  the  Borough  race,  who 
have  tried  the  Law,  and,  haviug  given  up  all  hopes  of  its  honoursy 
have  very  coolly  condescended  to  share  in  its  sinecure  profits. 
Thus,  the  Right  Honourable  Charles  Yorke,  who  long  went  the 
Western  Circuit  in  vain  in  search  o^  briefs y  appears  to  have  disco- 
vered, at  last,  that,  though  court-sycophancy  may  be  hereditary 
from  the  grandfather,  talents  from  the  law  are  not ;  and  he 
therefore,  instead  of  getting  \ipoQ  the  bench,  has,  through  the  in- 
terest of  his  Borough-patron  brother,  the  Earl  of  Hardwicke,  se- 
cured for  life,  3,000/.  a  year  as  Clerk  of  the  Pells  in  the  Court  of 
Exchequer,  to  the  Bench  of  which  Court,  at  least,  he  once  aspired* 

I  could  go  much  further,  and  show,  that,  in  fact,  it  is  the 
Borough-families  who  have  done  all  the  mischief. — But,  you,  my 
friends,  tnust  see  that  it  is  so.  In  one  character  or  another  they 
have  swallowed  up  the  fortunes  of  some, and  the  very  bread  of  others* 
No  wonder  that  they  are  loath  to  part  with  their  power,  which 
power  places  all  the  earnings  of  the  people  in  their  hands.  No 
■wonder  that  they  have  called  us  revolutionists,  jacobins,  and  sedi- 
tious dogs,  for  praying  to  them  to  give  us  up  our  right  to  choose 
one  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  They  talk  of  checks  and  balances 
iu  the  Constitution ;  and,  yet,  they  have  now  upon  their  table  a 
petition  presented  by  Lord  Grey,  in  1793,  offering  to  prove  at 
the  Bar,  that  one  hundred  and  thirty  persons  of  the  Upper  House 
sent  a  majority  into  the  Lower  House  !  What  check,  what  balance^ 
can  there  be  in  such  a  state  of  things  ^ 

If  Jack,  Will,  and  Dick,  have  the  joint  power  of  making  laws  j 


114  Two-penny  Trash; 

if  all  questions  be  decitled  by  a  majority  of  votes  ;  and  if  Jack 
nominates  Will  and  niakes  him  vote  as  he  pleases  ;  is  it  not  Jack 
who  has  the  absolute  power  of  making  what  laws  he  pleases  ; 
and  is  it  not  an  insult  to  poor  King  Dick  and  to  the  common  sense 
of  mankind  to  talk  about  checks  and  balances  ?  What  we  wanted 
was  a  House  chosen  by  the  Commons,  that  is  to  say,  tlie  people  at 
large.  There  is  a  Lords*  House,  and  we  wanted  a  Cotmnons^ 
House.  Then,  indeed,  there  would  have  been  real  checks  and 
balances ;  and  the  King  would  have  had  some  real  power  of  his 
own.  But,  to  show  that  he  has  none,  as  things  are  now,  we  have 
only  to  compare  the  sums  which  his  sons  receive  out  of  the  public 
money  with  the  sums  received  by  many  of  the  Borough  gentle- 
men. Lords  Arden,  Camden,  Buckingham,  and  several  others, 
have,  for  many  years,  been  receiving  tiuice  as  'iriucli  a  year  as  three 
of  the  King's  sons  receive.  I  believe  that  \h&  family  of  Grenvilley 
in  all  its  branches,  received  before  the  death  of  the  Marquis  of 
Buckingham,  more  per  cmnum  titan  the  Royal  Family,  leaving  out 
the  King  and  Queen.  I  believe  that  the  Seymour  family ,  or  the 
Manners  family ,  either  of  them  receive  more  now.  Could  this  be 
the  case,  if  the  King  had  his  due  share  of  real  authority :  or, 
could  this  be  the  case  for  one  single  hour,  if  there  were  a  Com" 
mons*  House  of  Parliament  ?     No  :  and  this  the  Borough  gentle- 

DO 

men  know  full  well;  and,  therefore,  we  need  not  wonder  at  the 
efforts  they  make,  at  the  shameful  and  desperate  deeds  they  resort 
to,  in  order  to  prevent  the  existence  of  such  a  House.  Leases  of 
Crown  Lands  is  a  monstrous  thing.  Only  think  of  the  Duke  of 
Portland's  lease  in  Marylebone  parish !  In  short,  they  have  all 
the  real  power  ;  and,  of  course,  they  will  cut  and  carve  for  them- 
selves. 

But,  they  have  now  an  enemy  to  deal  with,  whom  they  will  never 
subdue  :  that  is  the  DEBT,  which  of  course,  is  our  true  and  faith- 
ful friend.  The  wars  against  America  and  France,  the  chief  object 
of  both  of  which  was  to  prevent  a  reform  of  Parliament,  could  not 
be  carried  on  without  loans,  or  without  the  giving  up  of  the  emolu' 
mcnts  before  mentioned,  and  to  retain  them  was  the  object  in  pre- 
venting a  Reform.  Yet,  it  was  impossible  to  raise  money  enough 
ixi  taxes  to  continue  these  emoluments  and  to  carry  on  the  wars 
too.  Hence  the  Debt,  the  Funds,  the  Paper-Money,  and  those 
rivals  of  the  Borough  Gentlemen  the  Fundholders,  This  is  a  serious 
business  for  the  high-blooded  order;  for  either  they  must  give  up 
their  emoluments  and  their  estates  into  the  bargain,  or  the  Fund- 
holders  must  go  unpaid,  in  part  at  least.  This  is  the  real  state  of 
the  thing  at  this  moment.  The  Borough  system  approaches  its 
crisis.  Have  patience,  my  worthy  Countrymen;  only  a  little  pa- 
tience, and  you  will  see  that  these  borrowei^s  and  these  lenders  will, 
at  last,  do  like  most  other  borrowers  and  lenders ;  that  is  to  say, 
come  to  an  open  quarrel,  after  having  long  cursed  each  other  in 
their  hearts. 

That  will  be   the  day  for   the  people,  and  in  anxious 
expectation  of  that  day,  I  shall  now  proceed  to  make  a 


1st  November,  1830.  115 

remark  or  two  upon  two  or  three  particular  parts  of  the 
above  statements  of  facts ;  and  to  those  remarks  I  beg  your 
particular  attention  ;  for,  my  friends,  here  it  is  that  we  are 
to  look  for  the  real  cause  of  the  ill-will  that  now  fills  the 
bosoms  of  the  working  people. 

Lord  Stanhope  warned  the  Lords,  last  winter,  of 
the  danger  wdth  which  they  were  menaced  by  the  open  war 
that  had  begun  between  the  poor  and  the  rich.  I  have,  for 
16  years,  been  warning  them  of  the  dangers  of  this  war. 
The  war  is  come ;  and  the  real  cause  of  it  is  things  like 
those  above  stated,  of  the  existence  of  which  the  working 
people  have  long  been  apprised.  Let  me  now  advert  to  two 
or  three  particulars ;  and  then  put  it  to  the  rich^  whether  it 
be  possible  that  the  working  people  should  not  burn  with 
resentment ;  and  whether  the  wonder  is,  not  that  they  have 
now  broken  out  into  acts  of  violence,  but  that  they  should 
have  been  patient  and  submissive  so  long. 

In  the  above  selection  there  is  Lady  Louisa  Paget, 
and  then  she  is,  again,  down  for  another  pension  as  Lady 
Louisa  Erskine.  This  is  a  sister  of  the  Marguis  of  Angle' 
sea,  and,  of  course,  a  daughter  of  the  late  Earl  of  Uxbridge^ 
Burdett  harangued  on  this  pension  twenty -eight  years  ago! 
Well  may  the  people  hate  and  pelt  him  !  But,  here  are  the 
mother  and  sister  of  Herries  ;  and,  in  the  pensioner 
Juliana  Hay,  we  have  the  wife  of  the  younger  Hobhouse, 
who  was,  along  with  his  master,  pelted  from  the  Hustings 
of  Covent-Garden,  in  the  month  of  August  last.  Now,  it  i^ 
literally  impossible  that  any  of  these  women  could  ever 
have  rendered  any  service  to  the  country.  What  they  got 
and  get  was,  then,  so  much  in  gift  to  them  out  of  the  public 
money,  part  of  w^hich  the  working  people  had  to  pay.  And 
why  should  any  of  us,  and  especially  the  working  people, 
be  compelled  to  keep  these  people  in  ease  and  gentility  ?  If 
we,  in  the  industrious  walks  of  life,  fall  into  poverty,  we  must 


116  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

submit  to  its  pains  and  disgrace :  nay,  to  reproach  for  be- 
coming **  paupers'*  Why,  then,  when  any  of  the  aristo- 
cratic race  become  poor,  are  they  to  be  kept  in  luxury  by 
us  ?  Why  do  not  the  rich  aristocracy  maintain  their  poor 
parents  and  children,  as  we  are  compelled  to  maintain 
ours? 

This  is  a  very  striking  thing,  and  worthy  of  our  best  atten- 
tion. An  old  labouring  man  of  Ticehurst,  in  Sussex, 
came  to  me  for  advice,  some  few  years  ago,  in  great  agita- 
tion of  mind,  his  case  being  this :  he  had  a  son,  who  was 
dead,  and  who  had  left  a  widow  and  four  children,  whose 
poverty  had  compelled  them  to  apply  to  the  parish  for  relief. 
,  The  grandfather,  nearly  fourscore  years  of  age,  had,  by  hard 
labour  and  great  frugality,  got  and  kept  a  couple  of  cottages, 
yielding  about  \5L  a  year,  which,  together  with  a  little 
dealing  or  huckstering,  enabled  him  to  live  withojut  going 
to  the  poor-house.  The  law  compels  the  grandfather,  if  he 
le  of  ability,  to  keep  the  grand-children  from  the  parish. 
The  farmers  of  the  parish,  jTor  whom  the  children  worked^ 
Tnindy  paid  them  part  in  w^ages  and  part  in  poor-rates. 
They  demanded  that  the  grandfather  should  pay  the  latter 
part !  The  old  man  said,  that  if  he  did  this,  he  must  go  to 
the  poor 'house  himself  '^  Oh  !  no,''  said  they,  "  you  can 
sell  the  cottages,  and  the  money  will  keep  you  for  some 
time  at  any  rate  I  ^^  When  the  old  man  repeated  this 
saying  to  me,  he  exclaimed,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  **  And 
this  is  what  I  am  to  come  to  at  the  end  of  sixty  years  of 
hard  work,  and  never  wasting  a  penny  in  my  life  !"  "  D — 
them!"  said  I,  "  and  look  here!*'  and,  taking  down  the 
pension  and  sinecure  list,  I  showed  him  the  hundreds  upon 
hundreds  of  masters  and  misses  of  the  nobles  and  the  rich, 
for  the  support  of  whom  he  had  been  labouring  and  pinching 
all  his  life  long.  Old  as  he  was,  he  had  blood  enough  in  him 
to  make  him  utter  his  feelings  of  indignation,  not  unac- 


1st  November,  1830.  117 

companied  with  vows  of  vengeance.  I  remember  that  I 
particularly  pointed  out  to  him  the  Herrieses  and  the 
Hays,  and  one  of  whom  had  as  much  out  of  us  in  a  month 
as  his  four  grandchildren  got  from  the  parish  in  a  year! 
There  are  no  vx)rds  that  can  do  justice  to  one's  rage  in  a  case 
like  this.  Men  cannot  talk  about  it.  To  complain  argues 
baseness :  men  must  either  be  silent  or  act. 

Base  and  insolent  vagabonds,  like  those  at  Botley,  men- 
tioned in  the  last  Number  of  the  Trash,  call  upon  the 
working  people  to  save  their  money ;  to  put  it  in  savings^ 
banks  and  friendly  societies  !  Vagabonds  !  why  do  they 
not  save  theirs?  The  working-classes  are  to  save  their 
money  to  keep  them  from  the  poor -book.  Why  do  not 
these  lazy  and  insolent  vagabonds  save  theirs,  to  keep  them 
from  the  pension  and  siriecicre  list  ?  Oh  yes !  the  working 
people  are  to  be  frugal  and  abstemious  in  order  to  be  ew- 
dependent.  Why  do  not  these  vagabonds  practise  these 
virtues  in  order  to  preserve  their  independence? 

After  this  view  of  the  treatment  of  the  working  people  ; 
after  seeing  many  of  them  transported  by  the  Squires  and 
Lords  for  endeavouring  to  catch  a  hare,  pheasant,  or  part- 
ridge ;  after  making  them  endure  the  effects  of  Sturges 
Bourne's  Bills ;  after  seeing  them  compelled  to  draw  carts 
and  wagons  like  cattle  ;  after  seeing  them  sold  by  auction  ; 
after  seeing  man  separated  by  force  from  wife  to  prevent 
them  from  the  conjugal  intercoujse ;  after  seeing  one  tyrant 
condemning  men  to  starvation  if  they  married  before  the 
age  of  thirty ;  and  another  condemning  them  to  starvation 
if  they  kept  a  gun  in  their  houses  ;  after  all  this,  who  is 
to  wonder  at  what  we  now  behold  ! 

What  are  the  remedies,  then:  1.  Abolish  the  Game  Laws 
totally  and  instantly.  2.  Repeal  Sturges  Bourne's  cruel 
Bills,  3.  Repeal  PeeVs  Apple- Felony  and  new  Trespass 
Laws.  4.  Abolish  the  Tread-mill  and  hellish  solitary  cells. 


118  Two-PENXY  Trash; 

5.  Restore  the  Law  of  England^  and  especially  the  trial  by 
jury.  6.  Abolish  the  Malt  and  Hop  tax.  And  then  there^ 
may  be  peace  and  safety  until  a  reform  of  the  parliament 
can  be  made.  Then,  instantly,  let  the  farmers,  in  every 
parish,  call  together  all  the  people,  women  as  well  as  men,  and 
explain  to  them  the  cause  of  their  inability  to  pay  themr' 
a  svfficiency  of  wages.  Have  a  petition  ready  for  them 
all  to  sign,  praying  for  the  above  things;  sign  it  along  with 
them ;  bid  them  hope  that  their  prayers  will  be  attended 
to;  and  then  they  would  wait  with  patience.  They  would 
see,  that  they  were  embarked  in  company  with  their 
masters,  that  these  made  common  cause  with  them ;  and 
the  plague  would  he  stayed. 

There  is  no  other  remedy;  and,  if  the  farmers  be  too 
proud  to  do  this ;  if  their  heads  be  still  full  of  the  Yeomanry 
Cavalry  notions  ;  if  they  persevere  in  relying  on  threats,  or 
on  force,  these  dangers  and  sufferings  are  only  just  hegin^ 
ning.  Oh,  good  God!  how  often  have  I  painted,  or  en- 
deavoured to  paint,  the  ruinous  and  devastating  effects  of 
the  infernal  system  of  paper- money,  and  particularly  as  re- 
lating to  rural  life  and  affairs!  How  often  have  I  said, 
that  this  hell- born  Scotch  system,  by  drawing  capital  into 
great  masses,  and  thereby  annihilating  small  farms,  had 
broken  that  chain  which  connected  the  landlord  with  the 
labourer !  How  often  have  I  deplored  the  day  when  the  ac- 
cursed system  of  banking  broke  in  sunder  this  nicely-con- 
nected series  of  English  society,  and  divided  the  country  people 
into  two  classes,  masters  and  slaves,  the  former  despising 
the  latter,  and  the  latter  hating  the  former !  Not  a  village 
is  there  in  the  whole  kingdom,  in  which  there  are  not  several 
half-starved  labourers,  who,  or  whose  fathers,  were  farmers. 
They  can  see  no  just  cause  for  their  fall:  they  are  unable 
to  trace  the  effect  to  any  cause :  but,  their  anger  is  the 
same  as  if  they  could.     If  they  could  see  that  it  is  the  devil- 


1st  November,  1830.  119 

hatched  system  of  funding;  if  they  could  see,  that  they  owe 
their  ruin  to  bands  of  Jews  and  loan- mongers  and  such-like 
devils,  their  rage  would  be  against  them ;  but,  not  seeing 
the  distant  and  hidden  cause,  they  lay  on  upon  that  which 
is  near  and  visible.  The  farmers  are,  in  fact,  the  uncon- 
Bcious  agents  of  the  aristocracy  and  the  loan  and  fund- 
jobbers.  What!  and  do  they  not  see  this  now  ?  Has  it  not 
been  explained  to  them  often  enough  ?  Well,  then,  let  them 
take  their  reward ! 

As  for  ME,  my  friends,  the  whole  body  of  aristocracy  and 
loan-jobbers  have  sought  my  destruction  for  nearly  thirtj/ 
years.  They  are  now  in  the  situation  into  which  I  said 
they  would  bring  themselves ;  and  let  them  get  out  as  they 
can  !  I  hope,  that,  in  all  you  do,  you  wdll  be  guided  by 
justice ;  and,  in  that  hope  I  remain,  what  I  always  have 
been,  your  sincere  and  zealous  friend, 

Wm.  cobbett. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PROTESTANT    REFORMATION.— 

Thiuking-  that  this  work,  which  has  been  translated  into,  and 
published  in,  all  the  languages  and  in  all  the  nations  of  Europe, 
and  in  the  republics  of  North  and  South  America,  deserved  to  be 
put  into  ^fine  book,  I  published  about  two  years  ago  a  large  edition 
in  TWO  ROYAL  OCTAVO  VOLUMES,  the  paper  and  print  very  fine  and 
costly,  with  marginal  referenceSy  or  abstracts,  and  with  a  copious 
and  complete  index,  making  a  really  fine  library-book,  sold  at 
one  pound  eleven  shillings  and  six-pence y  instead  of  the  eight  shil- 
lings, for  which  the  small  duodecimo  edition  in  two  volumes  was 
and  is  sold.  I  was  out  in  my  estimate :  I  did  not  consider  that  the 
quantity  of  piety  and  justice  and  sense  was  not  always  in  a  direct 
proportion  to  the  length  of  purse;  and  that  while  the  cheap  edition 
was,  as  it  is,  continually  in  great  demand,  the  dear  edition  re- 
mained on  hand,  or  at  least  went  off  much  more  slowly  than  things 
must  move  to  he  agreeable  to  my  taste.  I  have,  therefore,. resolved 
to  quicken  the  motion  of  this  edition  by  selling  these  two  royal 


120  List  or  Books. 

OCTAVO  VOLUMES  AT  TEN  SHILLINGS,  only  two  shillings  morc  than 
the  price  of  the  two  duodecimo  volumes,  making  to  myself  a 
solemn  promise  never  to  publish  a  dear  book  again.  These  books, 
like  my  other  books,  may  be  had  of  all  booksellers  in  town 
or  country. 

RURAL  RIDES.  These  are  published  in  a  thick  volume,  duo- 
decimo; the  price  was  to  be  10^.,  I  shall  sell  the  volume  dX  Jive 
shillings,  in  boards  :  it  is  a  collection  of  all  my  rides  in  the  several 
counties  of  *^  Surrey,  Kent,  Sussex,  Hampshire,  Wiltshire,  Glouces- 
*'  tershire,  Herefordshire,  Worcestershire,  Somersetshire,  Oxford- 
**  shire,  Berkshire,  Essex,  Suffolk,  Norfolk,  and  Hertfordshire: 
*'  with  Economical  and  Political  Observations  relative  to  matters 
**  applicable  to,  and  illustrated  by,  the  State  of  those  Counties 
''  respectively.**  The  book  contains  66S  pages,  and  is  neatly  put  up 
in  boards ;  the  volume  is  printed  in  a  manner  to  (it  it  for  a  library. 

EMIGRANT'S  GUIDE.  A  new  edition,  price  2*.  6d.  With  a 
list  oi  clothes,  sea  stores,  and  other  things  necessary  for  a  young 
man,  to  fit  him  out  well,  and  give  him  a  fair  start  in  America.  The 
last  edition  oi  this  work  had  a  Postscript;  but  1  have  now  added  a 
List,  in  consequence  of  many  applications  on  the  subject.  It  will 
be  very  useful;  for  where  so  many  little  things  are  wanted,  some 
are  generally  forgotten;  and,  when  once  you  get  on  board  of  ship, 
it  is  too  late  to  say,  ^*  1  forgot  to  bring'*  this  or  that.  I,  though  a 
cabin-passenger,  have  given  a  shilling  for  an  onion,  to  a  steerage- 
passenger,  who  had  had  more  forethought  than  our  captain  had 
had.  This  list  is,  however,  principally  intended  for  steerage- 
passengers. 

Published  this  day,  30th  of  October,  price  Is. 

A  SKETCH  of  the  LIFE  of  GENERAL  LAFAYETTE.  Trans- 
lated from  the  French  by  James  P.  Cobbett. 

Published  at  No.  11,  Bolt  Court,  Fleet  Street;  and  may  be  had 
of  all  Booksellers. 


^Printed  by  William  Cobbett,  Johnson's -court,  Fleet-street.] 


No.  VI. 


COBBETT'S 


TWO-PENNY    TRASH 


For  the  Month  of  December,  1S30. 


TO  THE 

FARMERS  OF  THE  COUNTY  OF  KENT; 

On  the  measures  which  they  ought y  at  this  time,  to  adopt 
and  pursue,  in  order  to  preserve  their  property  and  to 
restore  their  country  to  a  state  of  peace  and  harmony ^ 


Gentlemen,  London,  21  Novemher,  1830. 

Being  at  a  dinner  of  farmers,  at  the  town  of  St. 
Ives,  in  Huntingdonshire,  on  the  29th  of  May  last,  I  saw 
handed  round  the  table  divers  copies  of  a  hand-bill,  notify- 
ing an  approaching  public  sale  oi  farming  stock,  in  that 
neighbourhood ;  and  one  of  these  bills  having  been  gi-ven  to 
me,  I  saw  that,  amongst  the  farming  stock  were  "  a  j'^re-? 
^'  engine  and  several  steel  man-traps,  all  in  excellent  con^ 
'^  ditionJ'  In  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  I,  at  the  same 
place,  gave  a  Lecture  to  these  farmers ;  and,  referring  to  this 
hand-bill,  I  told  my  hearers,  that  dismal  indeed  were  the 
times  become,  when  fire-engines  and  man- traps  formed  part 


London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street  j 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 


122  Two-penny  Trash; 

of  the  implements  of  hushayidry  !  I  told  them,  that,  when 
society  was  in  its  natural  and  proper  state,  no  life  w^as  so 
happy  as  that  of  the  farmer ;  having  all  the  health  that  air 
and  exercise  could  give,  having  all  his  real  wants  supplied 
by  his  land,  his  dealings  attended  with  no  risks,  his  commo- 
dities being  all  so  much  ready  money,  his  pursuits  as  solid  in 
their  character  as  the  earth  that  he  had  to  till.  But,  if  once 
the  natural  tie  hetiveen  him  and  his  labourers  were  broken, 
farewell  to  all  his  happiness  and  even  to  his  safety;  for 
that,  if  his  flocks  in  his  folds,  and  his  stacks  in  his  yard, 
were  not  as  safe  as  his  purse  in  his  drawer,  or  his  body  in  his 
bed,  instead  of  being  the  most  happy,  the  farmer  was  the 
most  miserable,  of  all  mankind.  I  told  them,  that,  if  the 
fatal  hour  should  ever  arrive,  when  the  labourers  in  general 
entertained  deep  hatred  towards  the  farmers,  there  would 
no  protection  be  found  in  man-traps  ?ind ^re-engines ;  that 
the  deadly  element  they  always  had  at  their  absolute 
command,  and  with  which  nature  had  furnished  them  as 
the  least  desperate  means  of  preserving  themselves  from 
starvation.  I,  therefore,  besought  them  to  think  of  these 
things  in  time ;  and,  with  all  the  force  that  I  was  master  of, 
J  urged  them  to  cast  from  them  the  vain  and  the  cruel  thought 
of  being  able  to  keep  the  labourers  in  a  state  of  half- 
starvation,  by  the  means  of  man-traps  and  fire-engines. 

Gentlemen,  farmers  of  Kent,  most  of  you  have  heard  of 
my  name  thousands  of  you  have  heard  me  speak  in  public, 
many  of  you  have  honoured  me  with  your  personal  acquaint- 
ance, and  a  real  honour  I  have  always  deemed  it ;  and  to 
you  I  appeal,  whether  you  have  ever  heard  me  open  my  lips, 
on  the  subject  of  the  state  of  the  country,  without  pleading 
the  cause  of  the  labouring  man,  and  without  urging  you  to 
guard,  in  time,  against  the  fatal  consequences  that  must 
result  from  his  being  rendered  desperate.  Within  the 
last  ten  years,  I  have  been  in  all  the  counties  of  England, 


1st  December,  1830.  123 

Dorset,  Devon,  Cornwall,  Westmorland,  Durham,  North- 
umberland, and  Cumberland.  In  all  the  other  counties, 
that  is  to  say,  in  thirty-three  of  the  counties  of  England,  I 
have,  at  some  time  or  other,  during  the  last  ten  years,  made 
speeches^  in  different  towns  in  each  county ;  and  never,  in 
one  single  instance  did  I  make  such  speech,  without  stating 
the  hard  case  of  the  labourers,  without  calling  upon  my 
hearers  to  do  them  justice,  and  without  telling  the  farmers, 
that,  if  justice  were  not  done  them  in  time,  th^  consequences 
to  the  farmers  themselves  would  be  dreadful;  for,  as  I 
always  told  them,  *^  though  they  have  been,  by  unseen  degrees, 
"  brought  down  to  live  almost  wholly  on  miserable  potatoes y 
*^  that  is,  to  live  on  what  you  know  a  hog  cannot  live  upon 
"  and  be  in  good  health,  the  time  will  come,  the  time  must 
"  come,  when  they  will  endure  this  no  longer  -,  when 
"  reason  and  nature  will  claim  their  rights  ;  for,  be  assured, 
"  that,  though  the  basest  assembly  on  earth  have  praised 
"  the  labourers  of  Irelaiid  for  lying  down  by  thousands  and 
"  dying  quietly  from  starvation,  the  labourers  of  England 
"  will  never  do  this,  and  God  Almighty  forbid  that  they 
''  should  do  itr 

This  was  the  conclusion  of  a  speech  made  at  Andover  oa 
the  14th  of  Oct.,  1826,  to  my  own  countrymen,  the  farmera 
and  hop-planters  of  Farnham  in  Surrey,  many  of  whom  had 
known  me  when  a  boy,  and  all  of  whom  knew^  my  origin  and 
all  about  me.  But,  gentlemen,  farmers  of  the  beautiful 
county  of  Kent,  has  not  the  bettering  of  the  lot  of  the 
labourers  been  the  great  object  of  the  labours  of  my  life '?  I 
have  ridden  on  horse-back  nearly  all  over  the  counties  of 
Kent,  Sussex,  Surrey,  Hants,  Wilts,  Gloucester,  Hereford, 
Worcester,  Berks,  and  others,  going,  as  much  as  possible, 
by  cross-roads  and  into  villages  and  hamlets,  that  I  might 
learn  by  my  own  eyes  and  ears  what  was  the  state  of  the 
working  people,  and  that  I  might  be  able  to  plead  their  cause 

Qi 


124  Tmo-penny  Trash; 

with  a  store  of  knowledge  upon  the  subject.  Some  of  these 
counties  I  have,  07i  horse-back,  plodding  along  from  village 
to  village  and  from  town  to  tow^n,  traversed  in  every  direc- 
tion, and  of  these  counties  Kent  is  one. 

I  have  collected  together  an  account  of  these  Rides,  and 
have  published  them  under  the  title  of  RURAL  RIDES, 
making  a  book  of  nearly  a  thousand  pages,  the  price  of 
which  I  fixed  at  ten  shillings,  but  which  I  sell  for  Jive,  that 
it  may  get  into  more  hands  at  this  time.  Gentlemen,  it  is 
impossible  to  read  this  book  and  be  surprised  at  what  we 
now  behold.  In  this  book  (taken  from  the  Register)  at  page 
584,  you  will  find  me,  in  1826,  when  speaking  of  the  village 
of  Uphusband  (real  name  Hurstbourne  Tarrant),  making 
use  of  these  words  :  "  I  wish  that,  in  speaking  of  this 
*^  pretty  village  (which  I  always  return  to  with  additional 
*^  pleasure),  I  could  give  a  good  account  of  the  state  of 
^^  those  without  whose  labour  there  would  be  neither 
^'  Gorn  nor  sainfoin  nor  sheep,  I  regret  to  say,  that  my 
^^  account  of  this  matter,  if  I  give  it  truly,  must  be  a  dismal 
*^  account  indeed !  For  I  have,  in  no  part  of  England,  seen 
*'  the  labouring  people  so  badly  off  as  they  are  here.  This 
*^  has  made  so  much  impression  on  me,  that  I  shall  enter 
"  fully  into  the  matter,  with  names,  dates,  and  all  the  par- 
^'  ticulars,  in  the  Fourth  Number  of  the  '  Poor  Man's 
**  Friend.'  This  is  one  of  the  great  purposes  for  which 
"  I  take  these  '  RidesJ  I  am  persuaded,  that,  before  the 
^^  the  day  shall  come  when  my  labours  must  cease  /  shall 
^*  have  mended  the  meals  of  millions,  I  may  over-rate  the 
**  effects  of  my  endeavours ;  but,  this  being  my  persuasion,  I 
**  should  be  guilty  of  a  great  neglect  of  duty,  were  I  not  to 
*'  use  those  endeavours." 

But,  in  this  same  year,  I  stated  the  case  of  the  labourers, 
in  the  most  elaborate  manner,  in  a  set  of  remarks  on  that 
part  of  Wiltshire  which  lies  on  the  banks  of  the  little  river 


1st  December,  1830.  125 

Avon  in  that  county ;  and  1  even  made  a  little  map  to  make 
these  remarks  the  more  easily  understood.     I  here  gave  an 
instance  of  the  process  by  which  the  labourers  had  been 
brought  down    to  a  state  of  half-starvation.     I  will   here 
insert  from  RURAL  RIDES  this  interesting  passage.     I 
will  send,  as  soon  as  the  new  ministry  is  formed  and  offi- 
cially announced,  a  copy  of  this  Two-penny  Trash  to 
each  of  them ;  and,  if  it  produce  no  effect  on  their  minds,  we 
shall  have  a  state  of  things  that  /  will  not  describe.     At  a 
meeting,  the  other  day,  at  Rochester,  Lord  Darnley  is 
reported  to  hare  warned  those  who  sought  a  revolution^ 
that  they  themselves  would  he  the  first  victims.     Who 
wants  what  he  means  by  a  revolution  ?     Who  is  seeking 
such  a  thing  ?     What   has  caused  the  labourers  to  rise  ? 
Why,  want,  horrid  hunger;    and  thi^  hunger  has  been 
caused  by  those  who  have  imposed  the  taxes.    What,  then, 
does  he  mean  by  "  men  who  seek  a  revolution  ?"    This  is 
silly,  spiteful  stuif,     Lord  Darnley  would  do  well  to  look  at 
tl;ie  real  cause  of  the  rising  :  he  would  do  well  to  read 
what  I  am  now  about  to  insert;  he  would  do  well  to  read 
RURAL  RIDES,  price  5s.,  and  POOR  MAN'S  FRIEND, 
price  6d.,   and  to   hold  his  tongue  about  YEOMANRY 
CAVALRY  !     At  any  rate,  I  beg  you  to  read  the  extract 
that  I  here  give ;  and  you  will  see  what  you  ought  to  do^ 
and  that  immediately  too.     You  see  clearly,  that  the  evil  is, 
that  this  horrible  system  takes  away  from  the  farmer  the 
means  of  giving  the  labourer  a  sufficiency  of  wages.     This 
is  the  evil ;  and  unless  this  evil  be  removed,  that  of  which 
Lord  Darnley  is   so  much,    and    so  justly,    afraid,  willy 
to  a   certainty y  take  place  !     This  consequence,   which 
I  have  always  deprecated,  which  I  have  always  laboured  to 
prevent,  the  New  Ministry  may  prevent  if  they  will ;  but 
not  by  force  of  arms ;  it  is  only  to  be  prevented  by  their 
attention  to  the  causes  of  the  present  dangers;  and  those 


126  Two-penny  Trash; 

causes,  truly  described  and  illustrated,  they  will  learn  from 
the  passage  that  I  now  urge  you  to  honour  with  an  attentive 
perusal. 

The  stack-yards  down  this  valley  are  beautiful  to  behold.  They 
contain  from  j^i'^  to  fifteen  banging  wheat-ricks,  besides  barley" 
rickSy  and  hay  ricks,  and  also  besides  the  contents  of  the  barns, 
many  of  which  exceed  a  hundred,  some  two  hundred,  and  I 
saw  one  at  Pewsey  and  another  at  Fiddleton,  each  of  which 
exceeded  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  length.  At  a  farm,  which, 
in  the  old  maps,  is  called  Chissenbury  Priory^  I  think  I  counted 
twenty-seven  ricks  of  one  sort  and  another,  and  sixteen  or 
eighteen  of  them  wheat-ricks.  I  could  not  conveniently  get  to 
the  yard,  without  longer  delay  than  I  wished  to  make ;  but  I 
could  not  be  much  out  in  my  counting.  A  very  fine  sight  this  was, 
and  it  could  not  meet  the  eye  without  making  one  look  round 
(and  in  vain)  to  see  the  people  who  were  to  eat  all  this  food ;  and 
without  making  one  reflect  on  the  horrible,  the  unnatural,  the 
base  and  infamous  state,  in  which  we  must  be,  when  projects  are 
on  foot,  and  are  openly  avowed,  for  transporting  those  who  raise 
this  food,  because  they  want  to  eat  enough  of  it  to  keep  them  alive  ; 
and  when  no  project  is  on  foot  for  transporting  the  idlers  who  live 
in  luxury  upon  this  same  food;  when  no  project  is  on  foot  for 
transporting  pensioners,  parsons,  or  dead- weight  people  ! 

A  little   while   before  I  came  to   this  farm-yard,  1  saw  in  07ie 
piece,   about  four  hundred  acres   of  wheat- stubble,   and  I  saw  a 
sheep-fold,   which,  I  thought,  contained   an  acre  of  ground,  diUfi 
had  in  it  about /owr  thousand  sheep  and  lambs.     The  fold  was  di- 
vided into  three  separate  flocks  ;  but  the  piece  of  ground  was  one 
and  the  same  ;  and  I  thought  it  contained  about  an  acre.     At  one 
farm,  between  Pewsey   and  Upavon,  I  counted  more  than  300 
hogs  in  one  stubble.     This  is  certainly  the  most  delightful  farm- 
ing in  the  world.     No  ditches,  no  vj at er -furrows,  no  drabu,  hardly 
any  hedges,  no  dirt  and  mire,  even  in  the  wettest  seasons  of  the 
year ;  and  though  the  downs  are  naked  and  cold,  the  valleys  are 
snugness  itself.     They  are,  as  to  the  downs,  what  ah-ahs  !  are  ia 
parks  or  lawns.     When  you  are,  going  over   the  downs,  you  look 
ore?' the  valleys,  as  in  the  case  of  the  ah-ah;  and,  if  you  be  not 
acquainted  with  the  country,  your  surprise,  when  you  come  to  the 
ed^e  of  the  hill,  is  very  great.    The  shelter  in  these  valleys,  and 
particularly  where  the  downs  are  steep  and  lofty  on  the  sides,  is 
very  complete.     Then,  the  trees  are  every-where  lofty.    They  are 
genera-Wy  elms,  with  some  ashes,  which  delight  in  the  soil  that  they 
find  here.     There  are,  almost  always,  two  or  three  large  clumps 
of  trees  in  every  parish,  and  a  rookery   or  two  (not  r(/^-rookery)  ^ 
to  every  parish.    By  the  water's  edge  there   are  willows;  and  to 
almost   every   farm,  there  is  a  fine  orchard,  the  trees  being,  in 
general,  very  fine,  and  this  year  they  are,  in  general,  well  loaded 
with  fruit.     So  that,  all   taken  together,  it  seems  impossible  to 
find  a  more  beautiful  and  pleasant  country  than  this,  or  to  imagine 


1st  December,  1830. 

any  life  more  easy  and  happy  than  men  might  here  lead,  if  they 
were  untormented  by  an  accursed  system  that  takes  the  food  fro)n 
those  that  raise  it,  and  gives  it  to  those  that  do  iioth'mg  that  is  useful 
to  man. 

Here  the  farmer  has  always  an  abundance  of  straw.  His  farm- 
yard is  uever  without  it.  Cattle  and  horses  are  bedded  up  to 
their  eyes.  The  yards  are  put  close  under  the  shelter  of  a  hill,  or 
are  protected  by  lofty  and  thick  set  trees.  Every  auimal  seems 
comfortably  situated;  and  in  the  dreariest  days  of  winter,  these 
are,  perhaps,  the  happiest  scenes  in  the  world ;  or,  rather,  they 
would  be  such,  if  those,  whose  labour  makes  it  all,  trees,  corn, 
sheep,  and  every  thing,  had  but  their  fair  share  of  the  produce  ot* 
that  labour.  What  share  they  really  have  of  it  one  cannot  exactly 
say ;  but  I  should  suppose  that  every  labouring  man  in  this  valley 
raises  as  much  food  as  would  suffice  iov  fifty ,  or  o.  hundred  persons, 
fed  like  himself  I 

At  a  farm  at  Milton  there  were,  according  to  my  calculation,  600 
xjuarters  of  wheat  and  1200  quarters  of  barley  of  the  present  year's 
crop.  The  farm  keeps,  on  an  average,  1400  sheep,  it  breeds  and 
rears  an  usual  proportion  of  pigs,  fats  the  usual  proportion  of  hogs, 
and,  I  suppose,  rears  and  fats  the  usual  proportion  of  poultry. 
Upon  inquiry,  I  found  that  this  farm  was,  in  point  of  produce, 
about  07ie'fifth  of  the  parish.  Therefore,  the  land  of  this  parish 
produces  annually  about  3000  quarters  of  wheat,  6000  quarters  oC 
barley,  the  wool  of  7000  sheep,  together  with  the  pigs  and  poultry. 
Now,  then,  leaving  green,  or  moist,  vegetables  out  of  the  question, 
as  being  things  that  human  creatures,  and  especially  labouring' 
human  creatures,  ought  never  to  use  as  sustenance,  and  saying 
Dothing,  at  present,  about  milk  and  butter;  leaving  these  wholly 
out  of  the  question,  let  us  see  how  many  people  the  produce  of 
this  parish  would  keep,  supposing  the  people  to  live  all  alike,  and 
to  have  plenty  of  food  and  clothing.  In  order  to  come  to  the  fact 
here,  let  us  see  what  would  be  the  consumption  of  one  family ;  let 
it  be  a  family  of  Jive  persons ;  a  man,  wife,  and  three  children,  one 
child  big  enough  to  work,  one  big  enough  to  eat  heartily,  and  one 
a  baby ;  and  this  is  a  pretty  fair  average  of  the  state  of  people  ia 
the  country.  Such  a  family  would  want  51bs.  of  bread  a-day; 
they  would  want  a  pound  of  mutton  a-day  ;  they  would  want  two 
pounds  of  bacon  a  day  ;  they  would  want,  on  an  average,  winter 
and  summer,  a  gallon  and  a  half  of  beer  a-day ;  for,  I  mean  that 
they  should  live  without  the  aid  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  slave- 
drivers.  If  sweets  were  absolutely  necessary  for  the  baby,  there 
would  be  quite  honey  enough  in  the  parish.  Now,  then,  to  begin 
with  the  bread,  a  pound  of  good  wheat  makes  a  pound  of  good 
bread  ;  for,  though  the  offhl  be  taken  out,  the  watei'  is  put  in; 
and,  indeed,  the  fact  is,  that  a  pound  of  wheat  will  make  a  pound 
of  bread,  leaving  the  offal  of  the  w  heat  to  feed  pigs,  or  other 
animals,  and  to  produce  other  human  food  in  this  way.  The 
family  would,  then,  use  1825lbs.  of  wheat  in  the  year,  which,  at 
fiOlbs.  a  bushel,  would  be  (leaving  out  a  fraction)  30  bushels,  or 
three  quarters  and  six  bushels,  for  the  year. 


128  Two-PEKNY  Trash; 

Next  comes  the  mutton^  365lbs.  for  the  year.  Next  the  bacon, 
730lbs.  As  to  the  quantity  of  mutton  produced :  the  sheep  are  bred 
here,  and  not  fatted  in  general;  hut  we  may  fairly  suppose,  that 
each  of  the  sheep  kept  here,  each  of  the  standing-stock,  makes,  first 
or  last,  half  a  fat  sheep:  so  that  a  farm  that  keeps,  ou  an  average, 
100  sheep,  produces  annually  50  fat  sheep.  Suppose  the  mutton 
to  be  15lbs.  a  quarter,  then  the  family  will  want,  within  a  trifle  of, 
seven  sheep  a  year.  Of  bacon  or  pork,  36  score  will  be  wanted. 
Hogs  differ  so  much  in  their  propensity  to  fat,  that  it  is  difficult  to 
calculate  about  them  :  but  this  is  a  very  good  rule  :  when  you  see 
a  fat  hog,  and  know  how  many  scores  he  will  weigh,  set  down  to 
his  account  a  sack  (half  a  quarter)  of  barley  for  evert/  score  of  his 
■weight;  for,  let  him  have  been  educated  (as  the  French  call  it)  as 
he  may;,  this  will  be  about  the  real  cost  of  him  when  he  is  fat.  A 
sack  of  barley  will  make  a  score  of  bacon,  and  it  will  not  make 
jnore.  Therefore,  the  family  would  want  18  quarters  of  barley  ia 
the  year  for  bacon. 

As  to  the  bee7\  18  gallons  to  the  bushel  of  malt  is  very  good; 
but,  as  we  allow  of  no  spirits,  no  wine,  and  none  of  the  slave- pro- 
duce, we  will  suppose  that  a  sixth  part  of  the  beer  is  strong  stuff. 
This  would  require  two  bushels  of  malt  to  the  18  gallons.  The 
-whole  would,  therefore,  take  35  bushels  of  malt ;  and  a  bushel  of 
barley  makes  a  bushel  of  malt,  and,  by  the  increase,  pays  the  ex- 
pense of  malting.  Here,  then,  the  family  would  want,  for  beer, 
four  quarters  and  three  bushels  of  barley.  The  annual  consump- 
tion of  the  family,  in  victuals  and  drink,  would  then  be  as  follows : 

Qrs.    Bush. 

Wheat 3      6 

Barley    . 22      3 

Sheep 7 

This  being  the  case,  the  3000  quarters  of  wheat,  which  the 
parish  annually  produces,  would  suffice  for  800  families.  The  6000 
quarters  of  barley  would  suffice  for  207  families.  The  3500  fat 
sheep,  being  half  the  number  kept,  would  suffice  for  500  families. 
So  that  here  is,  produced  in  the  parish  of  Milton,  bi-ead  for  800, 
fnutton  for  .500,  and  bacon  and  beer  for  207  families.  Besides 
victuals  and  drink,  there  are  clothes,  fuel,  tools,  and  household 
goods  wanting;  but,  there  are  milk,  butter,  eggs,  poultry,  rabbits, 
hares,  and  partridges,  which  I  have  not  noticed,  and  these  are  all 
eatables,  and  are  all  eaten  too.  And  as  to  clothing,  and,  indeed, 
fuel  and  all  other  wants  beyond  eating  and  drinking,  are  there  not 
7000  fleeces  of  South-down  wool,  weighing  all  together,  21,000  lbs., 
and  capable  of  being  made  into  8,400  yards  of  broad  cloth,  at  two 
pounds  and  a  half  of  wool  to  the  yard  .^  Setting,  therefore,  the 
wooli  the  milk,  butter,  eggs,  poultry,  and  game  against  all  the 
wants  beyond  the  solid  food  and  drink,  we  see  that  the  parish  of 
Milton,  that  we  have  under  our  eye,  would  give  bread  to  800  fami- 
lies, mutton  to  580,  and  bacon  and  beer  to  207.  The  reason  why 
wheat  and  mutton  are  produced  in  a  proportion  so  much  greater 


1st  December,  1830.  129 

than  the  materials  for  making  bacon  and  beer,  is,  that  the  wheat 
and  the  mutton  are  more  loudly  demanded /*rom  a  distance y  and  are 
much  more  cheaply  conveyed  away  in  proportion  to  their  value.  For 
instance,  the  wheat  and  mutton  are  wanted  in  the  infernal  wen, 
2iudsome  barley  is  wanted  there  in  the  shape  of  Dtalt;  but  ho^s  are 
not  fatted  in  the  wen,  and  a  larger  proportion  of  the  barley  is  used 
IV here  it  is  grown. 

Here  is,  then,  bread  for  800  families,  mutton  for  500,  and  bacon 
and  beer  for  207.  Let  us  take  the  average  of  the  three,  and  then 
"we  have  502  families,  for  the  keeping  of  whom,  and  in  this  good 
manner  too,  the  parish  of  Milton  yields  a  sufficiency.  In  the  wool, 
the  milk,  butter,  eggs,  poultry,  and  game,  we  have  seen  ample, 
and  much  more  than  ample,  provision  for  all  vjantSy  other  than 
those  of  mere  food  and  drink.  What  1  have  allowed  in  food  and 
drink  is  by  no  means  excessive,  it  is  but  a  pound  of  bread,  and  a 
little  more  than  half  a  pound  of  meat  a  day  to  each  person  on  an 
average  ;  and  the  beer  is  not  a  drop  too  much.  There  are  no  green 
and  moist  vegetables  included  in  my  account;  but,  there  would  be 
some,  and  they  would  not  do  any  harm  ;  but,  no  man  can  say,  or, 
at  least,  none  but  a  base  usurer,  who  would  grind  money  out  of  the 
bones  of  his  own  father;  no  other  man  can,  or  will,  say,  that  I 
have  been  too  liberal  to  this  faniily  :  and  yet,  good  God  !  what  eX' 
travagance  is  here  if  the  labourers  of  England  ^e  now  tvirated  justly  ! 

Is  there  a  family,  even  amongst  those  who  live  the  hardest,  in 
the  Wen,  that  would  not  shudder  at  the  thought  of  living  upon 
•what  i  have  allowed  to  this  family  ?  Yet  what  do  labourers'  families 
get,  compared  to  this  ?  The  answer  to  that  question  ought  to  make 
us  shudder  indeed.  The  amount  of  my  allowance,  compared  with 
the  amount  of  the  allowance  that  labourers  now  have,  is  necessary 
to  be  stated  here,  before  I  proceed  further.  The  wheat,  3  qrs.  and  6 
bushels,  at  present  price  (56^.  the  quarter),  amounts  to  10/.  lO*. 
The  barley  (for  bacon  and  beer) ,  22  qrs.  3  bushels,  at  present  price 
(345.  the  quarter),  amounts  to  37/.  If)*.  8rf.  The  seven  sheep,  at 
40*.  each,  amount  to  14/.  The  total  is  62/.  {)S.  Sd. ;  and  this,  ob- 
serve, for  bare  victuals  and  drink  ;  just  food  and  drink  enou^^h  to 
keep  people  in  working  condition. 

What,  then,  do  the  labourers  get  ?  To  what  fare  has  this  wretched 
and  most  infamous  system  brought  them  }  Why  such  a  family  as 
I  have  described  is  all(^wed  to  have,  at  the  utmost,  only  about  9*. 
a  week.  The  parish  allowance  is  only  about  7s.  Gd.'for  the  five 
people,  including  clothing,  fuel,  bedding,  and  every  thing  !  Mon- 
strous state  of  things  !  But,  let  us  suppose  it  to  be  nine  shillings. 
Even  that  makes  only  23/.  8*.  a  year,  for  food,  drink,  clothing, 
fuel,  and  every  thing,  whereas  I  allow  62/.  6*5.  Sd.  a  year  for  the 
hare  eating  a7id  drinking  ;  and  that  is  little  enough.  Monstrous, 
barbarous,  horrible  as  this  appears,  we  do  not,  however,  see  it  in 
half  its  horrors ;  our  indignation  and  rage  against  this  infernal 
system  is  not  half  roused,  till  we  see  the  S7nall  number  of  labourers 
Viho  raise  all  the  food  and  the  drink,  and,  of  course,  the  mere 
trifling  portion  of  it  that  they  are  suffered  to  retain  for  their 
own  use. 

G    5 


130  Two-penny  Trash; 

The  parish  of  Milton  does,  as  we  have  seen,  produce  food, 
drink,  clothing,  and  all   other  things,  enough  for  502  families,  or 
2510  persons  upon  my  allowance,  which  is  a  great  deal  more  than 
three  times  the  present  allowance,  because  the  present  allowance 
includes  clothing,  fuel,  tools,  and  every  thing.     Now,  then,  ac- 
cording to  the  **  Population    Return,"  laid  before  Parliament, 
this  parish   contains  500   persons,  or,  according  to   my  division, 
one  hundred  families.     So  that  here  are  about  one  hundred  families 
to  raise  food  and  drink  enough,  and  to  raise  wool  and  other  things 
to  pay  for  all  other  necessaries,  for  Jive  hundred  and  two  families  1 
Aye,  and  five  hundred  and  two  families  fed  and  lodged,  too,  on  my 
liberal  scale.     Fed  and  lodged  according  to  the  present  scale,  this 
one  hundred  families  raise  enough  to   supply  more,  and   many 
more,  Xh^iW  fifteen  hundred  families  ;  or  seven  thousand  five  hundred 
persons  !     And  yet  those  who  do  the  work  are  half  starved  \     In  the 
100  families  there  are,  we  will  suppose,  80  able  working  men,  and 
as  many  boys,  sometimes  assisted  by  the  women  and  stout  girls. 
What  a  handful  of  people  to  raise  such  a  quantity  of  food  I     What 
injustice,  what  a  hellish  system  it  must  be,  to  make  those  who  raise 
it  skin  and  bone  and  nakedness ,  while  the  food  and  drink  and  wool 
are  almost  all  carried  away  to  be  heaped  on  the  fund-holders,  pen- 
sioners, soldiers,  dead-weight,  and  oth*?r  swarms  of  tax-eaters  !    If 
such  an  operation  do  not  need  putting  an  end  to,  then  the  devil 
himself  is  a  saint. 

Thus  it  must  be,  or  much  about  thus,  all  the  way  down  this  fine 
and  beautiful  and  interesting  valley.  There  are  29  agricultural 
parishes,  the  two  last  being  in  town]  being  Fisherton  and 
Salisbury.  Now,  according  to  the  '*  Population  Return," 
the  whole  of  these  29  parishes  contain  9,1 16  persons  ;  or,  according 
to  my  division,  1,823  families.  There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that 
the  proportion  that  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  Milton  does  not 
hold  good  all  the  way  through  ;  that  is,  there  is  no  ri^ason  to  sup- 
pose that  the  produce  does  not  exceed  the  consumption  in  every 
other  case  in  the  same  degree  that  it  does  in  the  case  of  Milton. 
And,  indeed,  if  I  were  to  judge  from  the  number  of  houses,  and  the 
number  o{  ricks  of  corn,  I  should  suppose  that  the  excess  was  still 
greater  in  several  of  the  other  parishes.  But,  supposing  it  to  be  no 
.greater  ;  supposing  the  same  proportion  to  continue  all  the  way 
from  Watton  Rivers  to  Stratford  Deans,  then  here  are  9,116 
persons  raising  food  and  raiment  sufiicient  for  45,580  persons,  fed 
and  lodged  according  to  my  scale;  and  sufficient  for  136,740  per- 
sons, according  to  the  scale  on  which  the  unhappy  labourers  of  this 
fine  valley  are  now  fed  and  lodged  ! 

And  yet  there  is  an  *'  Emigration  Committee  "  sitting  to  devise 
the  me-jns  of  getting  rid,  not  of  the  idlers,  not  of  \\\e^ pensioners ,  wot 
of  the  dead-weight,  not  of  the^  parsons  ^  (to  ^^  relieve''  whom  we 
have  seen  the  poor  labourers  taxed  to  the  tune  of  a  million  and  a 
half  of  money)  not  of  the  soldiers  ;  but  to  devise  means  of  getting 
Y\A  fff  these  working  people,  who  are  grudged  even  the  miserable 
morsel  that  they  get !  There  is  in  the  men  calling  themselves 
**  English    country    gentlemen  *'    something    superlatively    base 


I 


1st  December,  1830.  131 

They  are,  I  sincerely  helievey  the  most  cruel,  the  most  unfeeling-, 
the  most  brutally  insolent:  h\xX.\know,l  caiU prove,  1  ca.n  safeli/ 
take  my  oath,  that  they  are  the  most  bajsE  of  all  the  creatures  that 
God  ever  suffered  to  disgrace  the  human  shape.  The  base  wretches 
know  well,  that  the  taxes  amount  to  more  than  sixty  millions  a 
year,  and  that  the  poor-rates  amount  to  seven  inillioni ,  yet,  while 
the  cowardly  reptiles  never  utter  a  word  a^'ainst  the  taxes,  they 
are  incessantly  railing  against  the  poor-rates,  thou<^h  it  is  (and 
they  know  it)  the  taxes  that  make  the  paupers.  The  base 
wretches  know  well,  that  the  sum  of  money  ^iven,  even  to  the 
fellows  that  gather  the  taxes,  is  greater  in  amount  than  the  poor- 
rates;  the  base  wretches  know  well,  that  the  money,  given  to  the 
dead-weight  (who  ought  not  to  have  a  single  farthing)  amounts 
to  more  than  the  poor  receive  out  of  the  rates;  the  base  wretches 
kn(»w  well,  that  the  common  foot  soldier  now  receives  more  pay 
per  week  {Is.  Id.)  exclusive  of  clothing,  Jiring,  candle,  and  lodging ; 
the  base  wretches  know,  that  the  common  foot-soldier  receives 
more  to  go  down  his  own  single  throat,  than  the  overseers  and  ma- 
gistrates allow  to  a  working  man,  his  wife,  and  three  children  ;  the 
base  wretches  know  all  this  Avell ;  and  yet  their  railings  are  con- 
fined to  the  poor  and  the  poor-rates ;  and  it  is  expected  that  they 
will,  next  session,  urge  the  Parliament  to  pass  a  law  to  enable 
overseers  and  vestries  and  magistrates  to  transport  paupers  beyond 
the  seas  \  They  are  base  enough  for  this,  or  for  any  thing;  but 
the  whole  system  will  go  to  the  devil  long  before  they  will  get  such 
an  act  passed  ;  long  before  they  will  see  perfected  this  consumma- 
tion of  their  infamous  tvranny. 

Here  is  the  whole  affair.  Here  it  is  all.  The  food  and 
the  drink  and  the  raiment  are  taken  away  from  those  who 
labour,  and  given  to  those  ivlio  do  not  labour.  During  < 
the  last  peacCy  the  government  took  away^  for  this  purpose, 
fifteen  millions  a  year ;  it  now  takes  away  nearly  sixty ; 
and,  observe,  that,  at  last,  all  taxes,  no  matter  of  what 
kind,  fall  upon  those  who  labour,  and  have  no  means  of 
making  any  body  bear  them  for  them.  All  persons  who 
have  things  to  sell  make  the  'purchasers  bear  a  great  part 
of  the  taxes  ;  but,  the  working  class  have  nothing  to  sell; 
and,  therefore,  the  load  finally  squeezes  them  down  to  the 
very  earth.  It  has  always  appeared  most  wonderful  to  me, 
that  you  seem  to  think  so  much  of  the  poor-rates,  which 
(as  far  as  they  go  to  the  poor)  amount  to  six  millions  a  year, 
and  to  think  nothing  of  the  taxes,  which  amount  to  sixtj/ 


132  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

millions  a  year !  I  can  say  nothing  upon  this  subject  that 
I  have  not  said  before ;  but,  that  is  of  no  consequence ;  it 
is  my  own  matter,  and  if  I  say  it  fifty  times  over,  still  it  is 
mine.  It  requires  a  great  deal  of  thought  to  trace  all  the 
miseries  of  the  labourers  to  their  real  source ;  but,  if  you 
will  only  bestow  a  little  attention  here,  you  will  find  that 
I  did  it  to  your  hand  long  ago.  When  you  have  seen  the 
cause,  you  will  naturally  come  to  the  remedy ;  but,  without 
knowing  the  cause  well,  you  will  never  think  of  the  proper 
remedy,  and,  if  you  do  not  think  of  this,  total  ruin  and 
revolution  must  come  upon  the  country.  I  beseech  you, 
therefore,  now  to  attend  before  it  be  too  late.  Think  of  the 
approaching  winter,  and  of  all  its  horrors,  if  no  eflectual 
remedy  be  appointed. 

That  tvhich  is  received  by  the  poor  in  the  shape  of  rehef  and 
maintenance,  amounts  to  about  six  millions  a  year  ;  that  which  is 
levied  for  other  purposes,  by  the  Government,  amounts,  for  Eng- 
land and  Wales  only,  to  about  ^ixty  millions  a  year,  including:  the 
tax-gatherer's  own  share.  The  farmer  thinks  nothing  of  these 
sixty  millions,  while  he  is  fretting  and  fuming  and  storming  about 
the  six  millions.  Talk  to  him  about  sixty  millions,  and  he  cannot 
understand  jou  ;  but  If  he  were  to  take  a  piece  of  paper,  and  put 
down  what  he  pays  in  a  year  for  the  use  of  his  own  house,  on  his 
malt,  sugar,  soap,  candles,  tea,  coffee,  pepper,  paper,  stamps,  and 
all  the  other  endless  variety  of  things,  leaving  out  wine  and  such 
things  as  he  ought  not  to  use,  he  would  find  that  one-half 
of*  the  whole  of  the  things  consumed  in  his  family,  that  family 
costing  him,  perhaps,  eighty  or  a  hundred  pounds  a  year,  is 
tax.  But  this  is  but  a  glimpse  at  what  |he  Ipays :  there  is  a  tax 
on  his  iron,  on  his  steel,  on  his  leather,  his  timber,  his  bricks,  his 
tiles,  and  on  everything  relating  to  his  implements  and  his  build- 
ings. His  coUar-makor,  blacksmith,  and  wheelwright,  have  all 
taxes  to  pay  on  every  thing  which  they  consume  ;  and  how  are  they 
to  pay  them  unless  they  receive  them  from  the  farmers  for  whom 
they  work  }  Of  the  tradesmen  in  the  towns,  of  whom  he  buys  his 
linen,  his  woollen,  and  his  groceries,  his  knives  and  spoons  and 
plates  and  dishes  ;  of  these,  also,  he  must  pay  his  share  of  the  taxes 
on  all  that  they  consume  or  wear.  Then  comes  the  labourer ;  then 
comes  six,  eight,  or  ten  men,  who  all  consume  more  or  less  cf 
taxable  commodities  ;  and  if  they  do  not  get  from  him  the  money 
wherewith  to  pay  the  tax,  how  are  they  to  have  the  commodities  ? 
Let  any  farmer  take  a  labourer,  and  let  him  sit  down  with  him  for 
once,  and  write  upon  a  piece  of  paper  the  divers  articles  upon  which 


1st  December,  1830.  133 

the  man  has  expended,  perhaps,  his  ten  shillings  ia  the  week.  He 
will  find,  if  he  refer  to  tiie  taxing  book,  that  more  than  six. 
shillings  out  of  the  ten  are  actually  gone  to  the  tax-gatherer.  And 
he  will,  therefore,  find  that,  if  the  taxes  were  tak^n  off,  the  man 
would  be  better  off  with  six  shillings  a  week  than  with  ten;  and 
that  for  him  to  become  a  pauper  in  the  absence  of  taxes,  would  be 
a  thing  so  unreasonable  as  not  to  be  tolerated  except  under  cer- 
tain particular  circumstances. 

The  farmer  would  find,  in  short,  his  expenditure  diminished 
much  more  than  one-half  by  the  total  removing  of  the  taxes  ;  bat 
he  would  find  himself  sufficiently  relieved,  and  would  know  nothing 
of  general  distress,  if  the  taxes  were  diminished  by  about  two- 
thirds  ;  that  is  to  say,  reduced  to  one-third  part  of  what  they  are 
now  ;  and  that,  at  the  present  value  of  money,  is^bout  the  mark 
to  which  they  ought  to  be  reduced.  Now,  as  to  the  other  great 
error,  that  the  taxes,  though  they  be  great  in  amount,  return  back 
again  to  those  who  pay  them,  because  they  are  spent  in  the  coun- 
try. This  was  the  curious  idea  of  Burkk,  expressed  in  a  pamphlet 
written  just  after  he  had  got  a  pension  out  of  these  very  taxes  of 
3,000  pounds  a  year,  to  last  for  two  lives  after  his  own  life  should 
expire.  How  false  the  notion  is,  we  are  just  going  to  see.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  not  true  that  the  taxes  are  all  spent  in  the  coun- 
try :  a  large  part  of  them,  or  at  least  a  considerable  part  of  them, 
are  spent  out  of  the  country ;  and  if  these  do  come  back,  their  retura 
must  be  very  slow,  and  their  arrival  very  late.  But  if  this  notiou 
were  correct,  why  does  the  farmer  grumble  at  the  poor-rates,  seeino; 
that  they  are  not  only  spent  in  the  country,  but  in  the  parish ;  yet 
no  one  ever  pretends  that  they  are  not  a  burden  !  All  manner  of 
devices  have  been  tried  to  diminish  them:  committee  after  com- 
mittee, debate  after  debate,  act  after  act,  project  after  project : 
absolutely  no  end  to  the  efforts  to  lighten  this  burden  of  the  poor- 
rates,  which  has  been  represented  as  taking  from  the  landlord  his 
estate,  and  dividing  it  amongst  the  labourers  ;  but  the  poor-rate  is 
a  tax  after  all  ;  and  if  taxes,  according  to  Burke's  idea,  come  back 
like  dews  to  enrich  the  land  from  whence  they  have  been  raised, 
why  all  these  efforts  to  diminish  the  pour-rates  ;  and  why  should 
they,  above  all  other  taxes,  take  from  the  landlord  his  estate,  when 
it  is  notorious  that  the  poor-rates  are  spent  in  the  parish  itself  ? 
Why  should  the  estate  be  taken  away  by  this  comparatively  triQing* 
tax,  while  none  of  our  law-givers  ever  appear  to  think  it  in  danger 
from  taxes  tenfold  in  amount ! 

But  how  is  it  that  taxes  return  ?  By  what  process  do  they  come 
back  again  ?  Suppose  there  to  be  a  tax  upon  a  particHilar  farmer 
amounting  to  a  pound  a  week,  collected  weekly,  and  suppose  there 
to  be  a  tax-eater  residing  in  the  village,  to  whom  the  farmer  pays 
this  tax.  Now,  this  tax  shall  not  only  be  spent  in  the  country  ;  not 
only  spent  in  the  parish,  but  spent  with  the  farmer  himself.  The 
tax-eater  comes  on  the  Saturday  night,  and  receives  his  pounds 
and,  on  the  Monday  morning,  he  comes  and  lays  out  with  the 
farmer  the  amount  of  the  pound  in  meat,  butter,  eggs,  or  other 
produce  of  his  farm^  and  gives  him  the  sovereign  back  again.    It 


134  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

■comes  back  to  the  farmer,  but  it  comes  to  fetch  away  a  part  of  his 
property.  Suppose  there  to  be' a  tax- eater  thus  fixed  upon  every 
hundred  acres  of  laud  in  England,  the  taxes  wouhl  all  come  back 
ag^ain,  to  be  sure:  but  they  would  come  to  fetch  away  property; 
and,  according  to  their  amount,  would  take  just  so  much  away 
from  the  farmer,  who  would  have  so  much  less  to  pay  to  his  land- 
lord, his  tradesmen,  his  labourers,  and  to  CDJoy  in  his  own  family, 
or  to  increase  his  stores  or  his  stock. 

The  Scotch  feelosophers  have  put  the  following  case  ;  or,  rather 
laid  down  the  following  proposition  :  that  it  is  nothing  to  the 
farmer  whether  he  pay  the  whole  of  his  rent  to  the  landlord,  or  a 
part  to  him,  and  a  j)art  to  the  parson  ;  and  that,  if  the  fundholder 
or  other  tax-eater  come  and  take  another  share  of  the  rent,  it  is 
nothing  to  the  farmer,  so  long  as  he  pays  only  the  same  sum  ;  and 
this  is  very  true  as  far  as  relates  to  the  farmer  himself;  but  it 
makes  a  vast  difference  to  the  landlord  ;  for  it  is  very  clear  that 
the  share  which  the  tax-eater  receives,  he  cannot  receive;  and  if 
he  do  not  receive  it,  he  cannot  give  the  employment  which  he 
otherwise  would  have  given,  and  being  less  able  to  favour  the 
farmer  than  he  would  have  been,  the  latter  cannot  be  able  to  give 
the  same  emplo}ment,  and  the  land  must,  therefore,  be  robbed  for- 
the  purpose  of  enriching  the  receiver  of  the  taxes.  It  is  very  true 
that  all  the  taxes  that  the  farmer  j)a}S,  directly  and  indirectly,  must, 
unless  he  be  ruined,  be  paid  by  the  consumers  of  his  produce ;  but 
he  himself  is  a  consumer  ;  and,  in  the  general  oppression,  he  must 
have  his  share. 

It  is  said  that  if,  in  consequence  of  the  taxes,  the  owners  of  the 
land  have  not  ihe  means  of  affording  employment ;  that  if  they  do 
iiot,  with  that  money  which  is  paid  in  taxes,  employ  labourers, 
those  to  whom  the  taxe  i'ire  paid,  will  employ  them  ;  and  that, 
therefore,  here  is  only  a  sjiiiting  o^  the  labourers  from  one  master 
to  another.  This,  however,  is  a  very  flestructive  sort  of  shifting; 
for,  if  we  were  to  allow  that  there  would  be  just  as  much  paid  for 
labour  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  we  ought  to  satisfy  ourselves 
that  it  could  be  as  profiuctive  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other ;  and 
that  the  removal  of  the  scene  of  action  of  these  labourers  would  not 
be  the  cause  of  a  destruction,  an  absolute  deftructiony  of  human 
food,  and  other  valuable  things.  Is  it  possible  for  a  man  worthy 
of  bfe^ing  called  a  statesman  to  open  his  eyes,  and  not  to  perceive 
this  waste,  this  destruction,  this  misapplication  of  wages,  which 
have  now  been  going  on  for  several  years  ?  No  man  that  looks  at 
this  Wen  and  its  environs  ;  no  man  who  reflects  on  the  large  part  of 
the  produce  of  the  whole  of  the  island  that  is  brought  up  to  this  VVen  ; 
oo  man  that  considers  the  immense  quantities  of  human  food  that 
are  absolutely  destroyed  in  it ;  no  man  that  considers  that  its  po- 
pulation, including  ten  miles  round,  exceeds  that  of  the  counties 
of  Bedford,  Berks,  liucks,  Cambridge,  Chester,  Cornwall,  Cum- 
berland, Derby,  and  Dorset,  being  eight  out  of  the  forty-two  coun- 
ties of  England  itself:  no  man  that  considers  that  each  of  the 
persons  here  must,  on  an  average,  consume  as  much  as  two,  if  not 
three,  in  the  villages,  and  who  reflects  that  a  full  fourth  party  at 


1st  December,  1830.  135 

the  least,  of  the  whole  of  the  produce  of  England  and  Wales,  meat, 
bread,  cheese,  butter,  is  consumed  in  this  all-devouring  place  ;  no 
man  that  considers  these  things,  and  who  has  eyes  to  see  the  de- 
struction of  human  food  in  this  place,  will  deny  that  there  is  more 
of  it  goes  down  the  common  sewers,  or  into  the  coal-holes,  than 
would  feed  the  whole  population  of  a  considerable  county.  So  that 
it  is  of  no  trifling  consequence,  that  you  ronove  the  food  from  the 
mouths  of  those  who  labour,  and  carry  it  to  be  swallowed  or  wasted 
by  those  who  do  not  labour.  The  same  holds  good  with  regard  to 
every  great  place,  as  well  as  with  regard  to  London,  only  in  a 
smaller  degree. 

Then,  as  to  the  misapplication  of  wages.  Suppose  a  tax-eater  to 
live  in  a  village,  and  to  take  from  the  farms  of  that  village  two 
hundred  pounds  a  year.  Suppose  him  to  employ,  about  his  house 
and  gardens,  persons  to  receive  altogether  just  as  great  a  sum  la 
wages  as  the  farmers  in  the  village  would  have  expended  in  wages 
if  they  had  not  had  a  tax-eater  to  keep,  and  if  the  two  hundred 
pounds  had  remained  in  their  pockets  instead  of  going  into  his.  Is 
there  no  difft.reiicc,  I  pray,  between  the  effect  of  wages  bestowed 
upon  a  footman,  a  groom,  a  coachman,  or  a  gardener,  and  the 
effect  of  the  same  sum  of  wages  bestowed  upon  men  who  work  in  the 
fields  ?  Must  there  not  be  less  produce  in  those  fields  ?  Will  not 
the  footman  waste  more  than  the  field-labrurer  ?  Will  not  apart 
of  the  wages  which  would  have  gone  to  the  labourer,  and  would 
have  served  to  give  him  warm  clothes,  be  w  astcd  upon  the  back  of 
the  footman?  Js  there,  in  short,  a  man  in  existence  so  blind  as 
not  to  perceive  the  vast  difference  in  the  effects  of  productive  and 
unproductive  labour? 

Look,  then,  at  the  face  of  the  country,  including  this  Wen. 
Behold  the  effects  of  taking  property  from  one  man  and  giving  it 
to  another :  see  the  monstrous  streets,  and  squares,  and  circuits 
and  crescents ;  see  the  pulling  down   of  streets,   and  building  up 
new  ones  :  see  the  making  of  bridges  and  tunnels,  till  the  Thames 
itself  trembles  at  the  danger  of  being  inarched  and  undermined: 
behold  the  everlasting  ripping-up  of  pavements^. and  the  tumblino-s- 
up  of  the  earth  to   form   drains  and  sewers,  till  all  beneath  us  is 
like  a  honeycomb  :  look  at  the  innumerable  thousands  employed 
in  cracking  the  stones  upon  the  highways,   while  the  d(/Cks  and 
thistles  and  couch-grass,  are  choking  the  land  on  the  other  side  of 
the  hedges  :  see  England,  this  land  of  plenty  and  of  never-ending 
stores,  without  an  old  wheat- rick,  and  with  not  more  than  a  stock 
of  two-thirds  of  the  former  cattle  upon  the  farms:  see  the  troops 
of  half-starved  creatures  flocking;  from  tbe  fields,  and,  in  their 
smock-frocks  and  nailed  shoes,  begging  their  way  up  to  this  scene 
of  waste,  in  order  to  get  a  chance  snap  at  the  crumbs  and  the  orts 
rejected  by  the  sons  and  daugliters  of  idleness  and  luxury  :  look  at 
all  this,  thou  Scotch  feelosopher  !  have  the  brass  to  deny  the  facts, 
or  acknowledge,  that  of  all   the  destructive  things   that  can  fall 
upon  a  nation  ;  of  all  the  horrid  curses  that  can  afflict  it,  none  is 
equal  to  that  of  robbing-  productive  labour  of  its  reward,  of  taking- 
from  the  industrious  arid  giving-  to  the  idle^ 


136  Two-PENXY  Trash  ; 

It  is  a  rare  thin^,  as  you  all  well  kuow,  for  an  ox  or  a  wether- 
sheep  to  be  killed,  not  in  a  villaore,  but  in  a  country  town,  unless 
it  be  of  the  larger  description.  This  devouring"  place  leaves  to  the 
country,  even  in  Scotland,  little  besides  the  mere  offal.  That 
which  cannot  be  sent  dead,  is  sent  alive,  and,  in  both  cases,  loaded 
with  all  the  expenses  of  conveyance ;  in  the  one  case,  with  car- 
riag^e,  by  boats  or  by  horses  ;  and,  in  the  other  case,  with  the  ex- 
pense of  drivings,  including  the  loss  of  flesh  and  the  deterioration  of 
that  which  remains.  I  lived  in  a  village  many  years,  and  never 
knew  the  butcher  kill  a  wether-sheep  ;  and,  as  to  an  ox,  the  thing 
was  wholly  out  of  the  question.  The  bad,  the  lean,  the  refuse,  is 
left  to  be  consumed  by  those  who  raise  the  whole  ;  and  all  this 
arises  from  the  transfer  carried  on  incessantly  by  the  tax-gatherer  : 
those  who  raise  the  food,  starve  ;  those  who  consume  it,  wallow  ia 
luxury. 

The  same  argument,  by  v/hich  it  has  been  attempted  to  persuade 
us  that  the  mass  of  the  people  suffer  nothing  from  this  transfer  of 
property  from  hand  to  hand  by  means  of  the  taxes  ;  that  argu- 
ment which  would  aim  at  convincing  us  that  the  expending  of 
■*\ages  is  just  as  advantageous  in  the  hands  of  the  tax-eater  as 
in  the  hands  of  the  farryer;  that  same  argument  uould  apply 
equally  well  to  an  army  of  soldiers  as  to  an  army  of  footmen 
and  grooms,  or  other  assistants  in  the  work  of  luxury.  Yet, 
if  a  man,  Scotch  feelosopher  or  not,  were  to  set  about  seriously 
to  maintain,  that  it  was  no  burden  to  a  people  to  maintain  an  army 
in  the  country  ;  for  tliat,  as  they  must  cat  and  drink  after  they  are 
soldiers  as  well  as  before,  it  would  be  of  no  consequence  to  the 
people,  seeing  that  the  taxes  received  by  the  soldiers  would  come 
back  again  to  them.  Jf  a  man  were  to  set  about  seriously  to  main- 
tain this,  he  would  be  considered  as  in  jest  or  insane  ;  and  yet,  it 
isimpossible  to  show  that  there  is,  in  the  effects,  any^  difference  be- 
tween the  maintaining  of  an  army,  and  the  maintaining  of  tax- 
eaters  of  any  other  description. 

FoRTESCUE,  in  his  De  Laudibus  Legum  AnglicB,  describes  the 
people  of  France,  as  being  in  his  day,  in  a  most  wretched  state, 
owing  to  the  heavy  taxes  that  they  were  compelled  to  pay  ;  de- 
scribes their  w;etched  food  and  wretched  drink;  and  describes  the, 
soldiers  as  eating  the  poultry,  while  the  poor  people  scarcely  got 
the  eggs,  by  way  of  dainty  ;  and  he  concludes  by  observing  that,  if 
a  man  by  chance  became  ricl),  he  was  presently  so  taxed,  as  to  be 
reduced  to  a  level  with  the  rest.  'J'he  picture  which  he  ^ves  of 
the  French  in  those  days  would  suit  the  English  at  this  present 
day.  Causes  which  are  the  same  produce  in  all  places  and  at  all 
times  the  same  effects  :  heavy  taxes  made  beggars  of  the  working 
people  of  France  ;  and  they  have  made  beggars  of  those  of  England. 

The  REMEDY,  then,  isr,  not  to  return  to  the  miserable  and  in- 
famous paper-money  ;  not  to  take  up  again  that  system  of  fraud, 
and  of  every  thing  that  is  vile  ;  but  to  reduce  the  taxes  ;  to  make 
them  less,  and  thereby  enable  the  farmers  and  traders  to  give  em- 
ployment for  useful  and  productive  purposes.  There  is  no  other 
May  in  which  to  arrest  the  progress  which  is  now  going  on,  and 
which,  if  it  be  pushed  to  the  extremity,  must,  after  beggaring  the 


1st  December,  1830.  137 

landowners,  and  all  the  productive  classes,  the  merchant,  the 
manufacturer,  the  trader,  and  all  the  rest,  produce  a  general  and 
terrible  convulsion.  We  have  read  of,  and  some  of  us  have  seen^ 
the  horrible  S)'steni  of  shutting  the  labourers  up  in  pounds  like 
cattle.  The  reason  of  thi^is,  that  they  apply  to  the  parish  for  re- 
lief, the  farmers  being  unable  to  employ  them  and  pay  them 
wages  :  the  overseer  having  no  work  for  them  to  do,  being  unable 
to  find  any  tax -eater  to  employ  them,  shuts  them  up  during  the 
day  in  the  parish  pound,  like  cattle,  in  order  to  keep  them  from 
prowling  about;  and,  also,  in  order  to  make  their  life  as  irksome 
as  possible,  and  thereby  to  drive  them  away  to  seek  employment 
in  some  distant  part.  This  has  already  endangered  the  peace  of 
two  or  three  counties,  and,  if  persevered  in,  must  lead  to  fearful 
consequences.  In  Suffolk,  and  in  some  other  parts,  there  have 
been  dreadful  acts  o(  arson.  At  one  place  in  Suffolk,  the  whole  of 
the  produce  of  the  harvest,  and,  amongst  other  things,  a  thousand 
quarters  of  corn,  have  been  consumed.  It  is  stated  in  the  Suffolk 
papers,  that  the  perpetrators  have  been  sent  to  jail.  This  is  a 
pretty  awful  beginning  of  the  season  which  has  just  now  begun. 
From  isolated  acts  of  this  sort,  so  frightful  to  contemplate,  others 
smd  7no7'e  numerous,  it  is  to  be  apprehended,  must  follow y  unless 
relief  be  afforded.  The  crime  itself  is  one  deserving  the  severest 
punishment  that  the  law  can  inflict,  short  of  that  which  is  due  to 
murder ;  but  it  is  useless  to  depict  the  crime ;  it  ^  useless  to 
reason  with  revenge  stiiyiulated  by  hunger  ;  and^  therefore,  some- 
thing ought  to  be  done,  and  that  speedily,  too,  to  give  security  to 
those  who  are  so  much  exposed,  and  whose  situation,  not  arisino- 
in  general  from  any  fault  of  theirs,  is  so  cruelly  perilous. 

There  appears  to  be  a  notion,  which  has  gained  ground,  and  has 
been  regularly  gaining  ground  ever  since  the  hundred  from  Ire- 
land made  part  of  the  House  of  Commons,  that  the  poor-rates 
ought  to  be  considered  as  a  positive  and  unquestionable  evil ;  that 
the  act  of  Elizabeth  ought  never  to  have  been  passed,  and,  at  any 
rate,  not  to  have  received  that  humane  construction,  which  it  did 
receive  for  upwards  of  two  hundred  years.  The  broacher  of  this 
new  doctrine  was  the  insolent  and  hard-hearted  Malt H us,  who 
soon  made  an  abundance  of  proselytes  ;  and  whose  doctrines  con- 
tinue to  be  cherished  by  almost  every  one  who  speaks  or  writes 
upon  the  subject.  To  lessen  the  amount  of  the  poor-rates,  has 
been  constantly  the  cry  ;  to  prevent  the  poor  from  eating  up  the 
estates  of  the  gentlemen  ;  never  looking  at  the  cause  of  the  poor 
being  so  very  poor  ;  never  dreaming,  apparently,  that  the  fifty-live 
millions  of  taxes  had  any-thing  to  do  with  the  matter;  and  never 
casting  a  thought  upon  the  subject  of  the  wishes  and  inclinations  of 
the  poor  themselves ;  never  seeming  to  imagine  that  what  they 
might  think  or  do  was  of  any  consequence  ;  but  seeming  to 
suppose,  that,  if  told  by  act  of  Parliament,  that  they  must  live 
without  relief,  they  would  quietly  and  contentedly  live  without 
relief,  or  quietly  and  contentedly  die.  This  was  a  very  great 
mistake.  It  seems  to  have  been  forgotten,  that  the  forefathers 
of  these  poor  compelled  the  cruel  Elizabeth,  and  the  cormorants. 


138  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

grantees,  and  monopolizers  of  her  reign,  to  pass  the  first  poor- 
laws  ;  these  projectors  seem  to  have  wholly  forgotten,  or  never  to 
have  known,  that  the  labouring  people  of  England  inherit,  from 
their  fathers,  not  any  principle,  not  any  doctrine,  not  any  rule  or 
maxim  relative  to  this  matter,  but  the  habit  of  regarding  parish 
relief  a^  theh-  right  as  much  as  they  think  the  right  of  the  landlord 
to  his  land  is  unquestionable.  These  projectors  ou^ht  to  have 
knowh  something  of  the  habit  of  the  people's  mind  in  this  respect. 
Every  one  of  them  looks  upon  it  that  he  has  a  species  of  property 
in  his  parish  ;  they  talk  of  losing'  their  parishes  as  a  man  talks  of 
losing  his  estate ;  and  this  is  very  right,  the  great  evil  being,  at 
present,  that  so  many  of  them  are  really  forced  to  lose  their  pa- 
rishes. Now,  men  may  talk,  and  do  whatever  else  they  please,  and 
as  long  as  they  please,  they  never  will  persuade  the  labourers  of 
England,  that  a  living  out  of  the  land  is  not  their  right  in  exchange 
for  the  labour  v^hich  they  yield  or  tender.  This  being  the  case,  the 
thing  to  be  aimed  at  is,  to  give  them  employment;  and  this  em- 
ployment is  to  be  given  them  in  sufficient  quantity  only  by  putting 
a  stop  to  the  transfer  of  the  product  of  labour  to  the  mouths  of 
those  ivho  do  not  labour ;  and  this  stop  is  to  be  put  in  no  way  but 
that  of  taking  off  the  taxes. 

Now,  gentlemen,  do  you  want  any-thing  more  than  this 
to  show  you  the  real  cause  of  the  sufferings  of  the  labourers? 
No ;  you  want  nothing  more ;  you  here  see  the  process  by 
which  your  property  is  taken  away  to  be  given  to  the  Aris- 
tocracy, the  Clergy,  and  the  Loanmongers,  and  how  it  is 
that  you  are  unable  to  keep  your  labourers  as  they  ought  to 
be  kept.  You  are  the  channels,  or  drains,  or  sucking-up- 
pipes,  through  which  the  fruit  of  the  labourer's  toil  is  con- 
veyed to  the  luxurious  table  or  to  the  gay  carriages  of  the 
Lords  and  the  Loanmongers  ;  aye,  and  the  strawberries  and 
cherries  that  these  Lords  and  Loanmongers  eat  at  a  guinea 
a  pound,  or,  perhaps,  at  a  guinea  an  ounce,  are  paid  for  by 
the  deductions  that  yo2i  make  from  the  labourer  s  meals. 
For  the  cause  is  this  :  every  thing  comes  from  the  land: 
you  gather  it  all  in;  you  sell  it  all;  you  take  all  the 
money ;  and  you  distribute  this  money,  part  to  the  land- 
lord, part  to  the  parson,  part  to  the  tax-gatherer,  part  to  the 
tradesmen,  part  to  the  labourers,  and  a  part  you  keep  for 
yourself  and  family.  The  landlord,  parson,  tax-gatherer, 
and  the  tradesmen  you  pay  without  grumbling ;  or,  at  least. 


1st  December,  1830.  139 

they  will  be  paid  ;  but  the  poor  labourer^  who  causes  the 
whole  to  come  iiito  your  hands,  you  pinch  as  much  as  you 
can.     His   share  is  a  very   large  one ;  and  so  it  ought 
to  be ;  for  the  sweat  of  his  body  causes  it  all  to  conie. 
But  his  claim    you   are  able  to  resist ;    he   cannot  force 
yau  to  pay ;  all  the  others  can  force  yau ;  and,  therefore, 
you  withhold  from  him,  in  order  to  be  able  to  pay  all  the 
rest.     What  I  said    to    the   farmers    at   Newbury,    in, 
1822, 1  say  to  you  now  :  it  was  not  a  prophecy ;  it  was  the 
dictate  of  plain  sense,  applied  to  the  most  interesting  of  all 
human  affairs.     I  dare  say  that  many  of  those  farmers  now 
think  of  what  they  then  heard  from  me.     "  There  seems,*' 
said  I,  **  to  be  on  foot  a  grand  scheme  for  making  the  farmer 
^'  a  machine  wherewith  to  squeeze  somethihg  out  of  the  la- 
"  bourer  to  be  given  to  the  landlord  and  the  tithe-owner.     I 
*'  know  that  nature,  as  well  as  reason  and  justice,  say,  that 
**  this  shall  not  be  done.     The  Bible,  from  one  end  to  the 
^*  other,  inculcates  the  maxim,  that  those  ivho  will  not  work 
**  shall  not  eat.     So  says  Moses,   and   so  says  St.  Paul, 
^^  There  are  some  among  us  who  would  reverse  the  maxim, 
*^  and  say,  those  ivho  will  not  work  shall  eafy  and  those 
*•'  who  will  shall  not !     Profoundly  ignorant  must  those  be, 
"  who  think  that  such  a  maxim  can  be  enforced.     Our 
^'  new  minister,  Mr.  Canning,  has  appeared,  upon  many 
"  occasions,  to  pride  himself  upon  the  want  of  knowledge 
"  as  to  those  that  he  would  call  low  matters.     But  it  is  time 
"  for  him  now  to  inform  himself  with  regard  to  them ;  for, 
*'  if  it  do  not  require  a  greater  mind,  it  is  of  far  greater  im- 
*^  portance  to  a  people,  to  trace  out  the  path  by  which  the 
*^  labourer's  dinner  finds  its  way  to  the  table  of  the  sinecure 
"  lord,  than  it  is  to  unravel  the  intrigues  of  courts,  and  to  fix 
**  boundaries   to    the  extent   of  dominion.      To    the  crop 
*^  which  the  land  produces,  the  labourer  has  theflr^t  clavn. 


140  Two-penny  Trash; 

'  for  it  is  he  that  ynakes  the  crop.     It  is  well  known  to  yott 

*  all,  gentlemen,  that  you  cannot  live,  much  less  carry  on 
^  your  aflfairs  amidst  a  race  of  starving  labourers.     You 

*  know  well  that  you  can  trust  nothing  in  the  hands  of  a 
^  starving  man ;  you  know  well  that  crme  does  not  apply 
'  itself  to  acts  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  life, 
'  God,  nature,  and  the  laws  have  said,  that  man  shall  not 
'  die  of  want  in  the  midst  of  plenty  of  food.  Look  at 
'the  state  of  the  labourers  in  Ireland;  presented  to  us, 
^  perhaps,  with  some  colourings  of  exaggeration  ;  but  look 
^  at  their  state,  and  then  let  me  put  it  to  you,  let  me  put  it 

home  to  the  hearts  of  English  farmers,  whether  they  would, 
if  they  could,  live  in  comfort  themselves,  while  all  around 
'  them  were  reduced  to  that  state  of  misery  ?  Were  I  a 
'  farmer;  were  I  pushed  even  to  the  very  verge  of  ruin,  my 
'  labourers  should  share  with  me  to  the  last,  I  would  pay 
^  my  tradesmen  in  full ;  and  as  to  the  landlord  and  tithe- 
'  owner,  they  must,  if  they  have  the  heart  to  do  it,  take  the 
'  rest.  Gentlemen,  great  numbers  of  persons  have  thanked 
'  me  personally,  for  having  been  the   cause  of  preserving 

*  them  from  ruin  :  if,  to-day,  I  should  have  added  only  one 

*  to  the  number,  the  having  occupied  your  time  so  long 
^  would  require  no  apology." 

In  this  strain,  gentlemen,  I  have  been  proceeding  for 
twenty-five  or  thirty  years ;  but  for  the  last  fifteen  more 
especially.  And  now,  though  it  has  come  slowly^  the  veri- 
fication of  all  my  doctrines  has  arrived  ;  arrived  in  a  fearful 
form,  to  be  sure,  but  it  has  arrived,  and  therefore,  I  am  now 
worthy  of  your  attention.  I  have  frequently  been  angry 
with  the  farmers;  I  have  repeatedly  accused  them  of 
baseness  in  complaining  of  the  weight  of  the  poor-rates, 
making  a  dreadful  outcry  about  the  expense  of  the  la^ 
bourerSy  speaking  of  them -as  of  a  load  and  a  curse,  while 


J  ST  December,  1830.  141 

they  paid  without  grumbling,  and  pulled  off  their  hats  to, 
the  landlord  and  parson  and  tax-gatherer  !  I  have  called 
them  base  for  this,  and  for  this  I  still  call  base  those  who 
C;Ontinue  to  act  this  cruel  and  cowardly  part.  It  is  but  bare 
justice  to  the  county  of  Kent,  however,  to  say,  that  the 
formers  in  that  county  have,  in  many  instances,  shown  a 
different  spirit ;  they  have  resisted  the  lords  and  parsons; 
they  have  openly  declared  that  the  labourers  do  not  get 
their  due ;  and  that  the  means  of  giving  it  them  is  taken 
from  them  by  the  landlord,  the  parson,  and  the  tax- 
gatherer. 

I  have  this  minute  received  an  account  of  the  recent 
proceedings  atTuNBRiDGE,  which  are  worthy  of  the  atten- 
tion of  the  whole  kingdom,  and  the  conduct  of  the  farmers 
there  worthy  of  the  imitation  of  all  the  farmers  in  the 
kingdom.  "  The  meeting,  convened  by  the  magistrates,  oa 
"  Monday  last,  for  the  purpose  of  swearing  in  special  con- 
*'  stables,  gave  rise  to  an  extraordinary  display  of  political 
^'  feeling.  Soon  after  ten  o'clock,  the  inhabitants  of  this 
'^town  mustered  in  great  numbers  at  the  Court  Hall,  pur- 
'^suant  to  summons,  when,  upon  the  oath  of  special  con- 
testable being  tendered  to  them,  i\iQy,  almost  to  a  man 
refused  to  take  it.  Mr.  R.  M.  Austen  addressed  the 
bench  in  explanation  of  his  refusal,  in  which  he  stated  it 
to  be  the  opinion  of  himself,  and  that  of  the  greater  part 
^e  of  the  ifihabitants,  that  the  proceeding  was  inexpedient, 
"  and,  he  further  declared,  that  although  they  were  ac- 
^*  tuated  by  the  most  devoted  feelings  of  loyalty  and  at- 
"  tachment  to  the  King,  yet,  as  the  Government  had  turned 
"  a  deaf  ear  to  the  just  and  reasonable  complaints  of  the 
*^  people,  the  latter  could  not  so  cheerfully  co-operate 
'^  with  them.  The  room  was  crowded  to  excess,  and 
[^  Mr.  Austen  was  much   applauded  at  the  conclusion  of 


142  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

''  his  address.  The  inhabitants  then  simultaneously  le  ft 
'^the  meeting,  and  upon  their  arrival  in  the  open  street, 
*'  they  gave  three  cheers  to  Mr.  Austen,  whom  they  con- 
'*  sidered  as  their  representative.  This,  however,  was 
'*  a  demonstration  of  feeling  which,  as  it  bore  the  ap- 
''  pearance  of  disrespect  to  the  bench,  was  no  less  re- 
*'  prehended  by  the  inhabitants  in  general,  than  it  was 
'^unpleasant  to  the  individual  who  was  the 'object  of  it. 
**  The  persons  summoned  from  the  other  parishes  generally 
"  refused  to  be  sworn  in.  They  complained  of  the  intoler^ 
*'  able  burthen  of  the  taxes,  and  the  inattention  of  Govern" 
*^  ment  to  their  distress.  To  these  complaints  the  magis- 
*^  trates  replied,  that,  as  they  were  not  legislators,  it  was  of 
^'  no  use  to  complain  to  them,  and,  that  several  respectable 
"  inhabitants  having,  upon  oath,  declared  their  apprehen- 
*'  sions  of  a  riot,  it  was  imperative  upon  them  to  take  the 
'*  steps  they  had  done  to  preserve  the  public  peace.  Lord 
'^  Brecknock  ivas  present,  and  entered  familiarly  into 
*^  conversation  with  some  of  the  principal  recusants.  One 
^  of  those  placards,  headed  ^  Nice  Pickings,'  which  have 
**  been  so  numerously  circulated,  w'as  placed  in  the  hands  of 
*'  his  Lordship,  who  declared  that  the  statement  of  the  in- 
**  come  of  several  of  the  individuals  therein  named  was 
''  grossly  exaggerated.  Out  of  upwards  of  300  persons 
*'  who  were  summoned,  only  fifty-two,  including  some 
^'  volunteers,  who  took  the  oaths  on  the  previous  Saturday, 
**  consented  to  act  as  special  constables. 

**  A  troop  of  the  5th  Dragoon  Guards  is  at  present 
**  stationed  at  Tunbridge  Wells;  but,  although  information 
**  has  been  received  there  of  the  assemblage  of  mobs  at  no 
^*  great  distance,  the  services  of  the  military  have  not  yet 
**  been  required. 

We  are  sorry   to  state,  that  information  was  received 


i< 


1st  December,  1830.  143 

"  here  on  Saturday  evening,  that    several   corn-stacks  at 
"  Riverhead  were  set  on  fire. 

"  The  Rev.  Sir  Charles  Hardinge  has  reduced  the 
**  vicarial  tithes  of  Tonbridge  ten  per  cent.,  in  order  to 
*^  relieve  the  farmers,  on  account  of  the  pressure  of  the 
*'  times,  and  to  enable  them  to  raise,  the  wages  of  the 
"  labourers^  The  vicarial  tithes  have  always  been  mode- 
"  rate,  being  rated  at  little  more  than  half  their  real  value. 
"  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  those  who  hold  the  rectorial  tithes 
"  will  be-  induced  to  follow  the  example  set  them  by  the 
"  Rev.  Baronet." 

Gentlemen,  in  conclusion,  let  me  exhort  yon  to  make 
common  cause  with  your  labourers  in  obtaining  a  removal 
of  the  cause  of  their  sufferings.  Their  cause  is  yours ; 
they  are  of  your  family;  you  cannot  even  exist  without 
them,  much  less  can  you  be  sq/e,  if  they  be  miserable.  ~ 
Suppose  a  father,  having  plenty  of  means  of  all  sorts,  being, 
in  short,  a  rich  farmer,  drinking  wine  every  day,  eating  the 
dearest  of  food,  sitting  in  a  carpeted  parlour,  sleeping  in  a  i 

bed  of  down;  and  suppose  him  to  have  six  sons,  doing  all 
the  work  upon  the  farm,  fed  upon  potatoes,  and  lodged  in  a 
miserable  shed.  Even  this  would  not  be  more  unnatural 
and  unjust  than  has  been  the  conduct  of  many  farmers 
towards  their  labourers.  Could  such  a  father  expect  to  be 
beloved  by  his  sons  ?  And  can  such  farmCiS  expect  to  be 
beloved  by  their  labourers?  Gentlemen,  put  not  your 
trust  in  terror  or  in  force ;  to  the  Englishman  who  is 
reduced  to  potatoes  to  sustain  life,  there  are  no  terrors  even 
in  the  prospect  of  death ;  and  besides^  what  defence  is 
there  against  the  torch!  If  there  were  but  owe  man  in  every 
parish  bent  upon  the  destruction  of  consumable  property, 
the  property  would  be  a  fourth  part  destroyed.  What,, 
then,  is  the  ONLY  REMEDY  ?  To  give  the  labourer  a 
sufficiency  of  ^ood  ybod  and  of  good  raiment.    There  is 


144    Two-PENNY  Trash  ;  1st  December,  1830. 

no  other  remedy;  and,  gentlemen,  that  you  will  resolve  to 
apply  this  remedy,  and  leave  the  landlord  and  parson  and 
tax-gatherer  to  get  what  they  can  of  the  remainder  is  the 
urgent  advice  of 

Your  Friend, 
And  most  obedient  servant, 

Wm.  COBBETT. 


MR.  COBBETT'S  PUBLICATIONS. 
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culture, and  products  ;  of  the  prices  of  provisions  and  labour  ;  and  of  the  dresses 
and  conditions  of  the  people  ;  and  also  some  account  of  the  laws  and  customs, 
civil  and  religious,  and  of  the  morals  and  demeanour  of  the  inhabitants,  in  the 
several  States.    By  James  P.  Cobbetf. 


Mills,  Jowett,  and  Mills,  Bolt  Court,  Fleet  Street, 


No.  VII. 


COBBETT'S 
TWO-PENNY  TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  January,  1831. 


TO    THE 

LABOURERS  OF  ENGLAND; 

On  the  measures  which  ought  to  be  adopted  with  regard 
to  the  Tithes,  and  with  regard  to  the  other  property ^ 
commonly  called  Church-Property . 


Kensington,  26th  December,  1830- 
My  Friends, 

I  PERCEIVE  that  there  is  a  Parson  at  a  parish  ia 
Norfolk,  who  has  been  endeavouring  to  persuade  the  labour- 
ers that  he  is  their  friend,  and  that  the  farmers  are  their 
enemies.  He  has  circulated,  in  a  hand-bill,  the  following 
statement.  Others  of  the  parsons  have  published  hand- 
bills, calling  upon  you  to  believe,  that  the  tithes  are  good 
things  for  you.  But  let  me  desire  you  to  read  the  hand- 
bill of  the  Norfolk- parson.     It  is  in  the  following  words  :— 


London  :   Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street; 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 
H 


146  Two-penny  Trash; 

^*  To  the  Poor  Inhabitants  of  Surlingham. — I  have  re- 
*<  ceived  from  some  of  the  farmers  in  Surlingham,  a  notice 
"  to  gather  my  tithes  in  kind,  or  else  to  agree  to  take  in 
**  future  jws^  what  they  shall  please  to  offer,  I  cannot 
**  submit  to  such  an  unjust  demand,  and  therefore  I  am 
"  compelled,  in  self-defence,  to  gather  my  tithes  from  this 
"  time ;  and  I  hereby  make  it  known  to  you,  that  on  and 
'*  after  Monday,  the  20th  of  December,  it  is  my  intention  to 
*'  distribute  as  a  gift,  amongst  the  poor  and  deserving 
*^  families,  all  the  eggs,  milk,  pigs,  poultry,  and  fruity 
**  which  shall  in  future  belong  to  me  as  the  small  tithes 
*^  arising  upon  the  several  occupations  of  Messrs.  Samuel 
'^  Barnes,  Gibbs  Murrell,  R.  G.  Rudd,  John  Gent,  Robert 
^'  High,  John  Newman,  sen.,  John  Newman,  jun.,  James 
*'  Smith,  and  Thomas  Middleton.  I  was  sorry, /or  the  sake 
"  of  the  poor,  that  some  of  you  met  at  the  Ferry-house  in 
"  an  unlawful  manner,  and  there  did  hinder  the  payment 
**  of  my  tithes;  but  I  have  no  doubt  that  you  were  misled 
**  into  that  dangerous  conduct,  and  made  tools  of  by 
**  others  to  serve  their  own  selfish  purpbses ;  for  I  cannot 
*'  believe  any  of  the  poor  in  Surlingham  are  my  enemies, 
*'  to  whom,  whether  in  sickness  or  health,  I  have  always 
*'  tried  to  be  a  friend.  "  W.  COLLETT, 

^'  Rector  and  Vicar  of  Surlingham. 
^*  Dec.  H,  1830." 

I  daresay,  that  the  "  poor  inhabitants  of  Surlingham^' 
understood  all  this  very  well  I  I  dare  say,  that  they  saw, 
that  such  a  trick  was  to  be  despised  ;  that  they  asked  how 
the  parson  never  came  to  make  such  an  offer  before ;  but 
would  they  not  ask  also,  why  he  did  not  give  them  some  of 
the  calves,  lambs,  wool,  potatoes,  turnips  and  corw,  'as 
well  as  the  milk,  eggs,  pigs,  and  fruit  ?  In  short,  they 
would  see,  because  they  must  see,  that  this  was  a  work  of 
spite  J  and  not  of  charity^ 


1st  January,  1831.  147 

But  it  is  not  this  pitiful  part  of  the  tithes  that  I  want  to 
see  taken  away  from  the  parsons  and  bishops  :  I  want  to  see 
the  whole  taken  away :  the  tithes,  the  church-lands,  and  all 
other  property  held  by  the  clergy  in  virtue  of  their  clerical 
functions  and  offices.  I  want  to  see  it  all  taken  away  by 
LAW.  It  was  given  to  them  by  law;  it  is  held  by  law ; 
and  it  may  be  taken  away  by  lata :  that  which  the  law  has 
given,  the  law  may  take  away;  otherwise  we  should  be 
living  in  a  strange  state  of  things.  Such,  an  important  mea- 
sure is,  however,  not  to  be  adopted  without  regard  to  the 
justice  and  necessity  of  it.  Such  a  measiire  would  take 
property  from  a  great  number  of  persons ;  it  would  make 
many  low  who  are  now  high;  it  would  compel  to 
labour  for  their  bread  many  who  now  do  nothing  and  yet 
live  in  luxury ;  it  would  compel  many  who  now  ride  in 
coaches,  not  only  to  walk  on  foot,  but  to  work  in  company 
with  those  whom  they  seem  to  look  upon  as  made  for  their 
pleasure  and  sport.  Yet,  such  a  measure  ought  not  to  be 
adopted  in  a  hasty  manner;  due  consideration  ought  to  be 
had  in  the  case ;  it  ought,  before  adopted^  to  be  proved  to 
be  just  and  necessary ;  and,  as  I  am  decidedly  for  the 
measure,  and  would  cause  it  to  be  adopted,  if  I  had  the 
power,  1  look  upon  myself  as  bound  to  show  that  ii  is  just 
and  necessary.  Legal  1  know  it  must  be  allowed  to  be  y 
but  that  which  is  legal  may  not  always  be  just.  Some 
have  denied  that  it  would  be  legal;  and,  therefore,  the 
legality  shall  be  proved  first. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  have  to  show  you,  Jirst^  that  it  is  legal, 
that  it  is  agreeable  with  the  laws  of  our  country,  to  take 
this  property  from  the  parsons  by  Act  of  Parliament.  2.  I 
have  to  show  you,  that  it  is  just  to  do  it.  3.  I  have  to  show 
you,  that  the  measure  is  necessary  to  the  prosperity,  peace,  and 
safety  of  the  nation.  And,  my  friends,  if  I  prove  all  these 
to  yoU;  it  will  be  your  bounden  duty  to  lend  your  aid  in 

h2 


148  Two-penny  Trash; 

causing  this  measure  to  be  adopted ;  and  to  be  active  and 
zealous  too,  in  lending  that  aid ;  for,  as  you  will  by-and-by 
see,  it  is,  after  all,  the  labouring  ^people  who  suflPer  most 
from  the  tithes,  and  who,  in  fact,  pay  the  whole  of  them  in 
the  end. 

FIRST,  then,  to  show  you  that  it  is-^greeable  to  the  laws 
of  the  country  to  take  away  the  tithes  and  other  property, 
commonly  called  church- property,  I  have  only  to  state  to 
you  what  has  been  done,  in  this  respect,  in  former  times.     I 
sh^U  have,  further  on,  to  speak  of  the  origin  and  the  infen- 
tion  and  \\\q  former  application  of  tithes,  when  I  come  to 
the  justice  of  my  proposition :    at  present   I  shall   speak 
merely  of  the  legality  of  the  thing.     We  know  that  when 
a  law  has  been  passed  by  king  and  parliament,  that  which 
is  ordered,  or  allowed,  by  such  law,  is  legal  in  the  technical 
sense  of  the  word.     If  a  nest  of  villains  were  bloody  enough 
to  pass  a  law  to  put  men  to  death  for  refusing  to  live  upon 
potatoes;  or  to  cause  the  breasts  of  the  young  women  to  be 
cut  off;  or  to  cause  them  to  be  disqualified  for  breeding; 
or  to  have  their  bodies  exposed  to  public  view,  to  be  poked 
and  groped  about  and  chopped  to  pieces,  and  then  to  be 
flung  to  the  dogs,  as  the  carcass  of  Jezabel  was  :  if  laws  like 
these  were  to  be  passed,  all  the  world  would  say,  that  they 
were  no  laws  at  all,  and,  of  course,  that  they  ought  not  to 
be  regarded  as  precedents.     But  very  different  is  the  case 
here,  as  I  am  now  about  to  prove. 

The  whole  of  this  property,  parsons'  tithes,  lay-tithes, 
college  and  bishops'  estates,  originally  were  held  in  trust  by 
the  Catholic  Clergy,  for  certain  public  purposes,  of 
"which  I  shall  speak  under  the  next  head.  But,  in  the 
reigns  of  Henry  VIII.,  Edtvard  VI.,  Elizabeth,  and  James  I., 
all  these  tithes  and  other  property,  both  in  England  and 
Ireland,  were,  hy  Acts  of  Parliament,  taken  away  from  the 
Catholic  clergy,  and  given,  some  to  Protestant  parsons, 


1st  January,  1831.  149 

and  the  rest  to  divers  persons  of  the  aristocracy,  who  hold 
all  this  property  to  this  day.  If,  then,  this  could  be  legally 
and  constitutionally  done,  why  cannot  the  property  be  taken 
away  from  the  present  possessors  by  Act  of  Parliament  ? 
The  holders  contend,  however,  that  all  this  property,  even 
the  tithes,  belong  to  the  holders,  as  completely  as  any  man*s 
estate  or  goods  belong  to  him.  If  this  be  the  case,  the 
tithes  (to  confine  ourselves  to  them  for  the  present)  were 
unlawfully  taken  from  the  Catholic  clergy;  it  was  an  act 
of  rapine  to  take  them  from  that  clergy ;  and  will  our  par- 
sons allow  that  their  possessions  are  the  fruits  of  rapine  ? 

But  let  us  look  at  the  part  of  the  Catholic  church-pro- 
perty that  was  taken  away  and  given  to  the  aristocracy  ; 
I  mean,  the  great  tithes  of  many  parts  of  the  kingdom 
and  the  abbey-lands ;  and  let  us  take,  as  [specimens,  th^ 
Duke  of  Devonshire's  great  tithes  of  twenty  parishes  in. 
Ireland,  and  the  Duke  of  Bedford's  ownership  of  Covent 
Garden,  which  latter  spot  belonged  to  the  Abbey  of  West- 
minster. If  either  of  these  were  called  upon  to  prove  his 
title  to  these  things  (and  he  may  be  so  called  on  by  any 
man  of  whom  tithe  is  demanded  for  the  one  or  toll  for  the 
other),  he  must  go  back  to  the  Acts  of  Parliament  {and 
not  very  far  back),  in  virtue  of  which  he  holds  his  estate. 
And  will  either  of  these  dukes  deny,  then,  that  these  Acts  o£ 
Parliament  were  laivful ;  will  they  deny,  that  they  were 
agreeably  to  the  laws  and  constitution  of  the  country ;  will 
they  acknowledge  that  they  hold  these  estates  from  the 
efiects  of  an  act  of  rapine  ?  Oh,  no !  They  must  plead 
the  Acts  as  good,  as  agreeable  to  the  law  of  the  land;  and, 
if  they  do  this,  they  declare,  that  to  take  away  any  part  of 
the  property  of  the  church,  is  a  thing  that  may  be  done 
without  any  violation  of  the  law  of  the  land. 

There  is  a  distinction  to  be  made  between  the  property 
which  was  given  to  the  aristocracy,  and  that  which  was 


,r>^ 


150  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

given  to  the  Protestant  parsons  and  bishops  and  col- 
leges; and  there  are  persons  who  contend,  that  the  former 
is  now  become  private  property  ^  and,  of  course,  that  the 
Dukes  of  Devonshire  and  Bedford  have,  to  the  above-men- 
tioned tithes  and  tolls,  as  perfect  a  right  as  any  man  has  to 
an  estate  that  never  belonged  to  the  public,  in  the  name  of 
church-property.  Burke  (the  great  apostle  of  the  ariS" 
tocracy!)  says  very  much  the  contrary;  for  he  says,  that 
the  Duke  of  Bedford  had  no  better  claim  to  Woburn  thaa 
he  (Burke)  had  to  his  pension!  However,  this  is  a  point 
that  I  leave  without  discussion  at  present ;  and  I  sincerely 
hope,  that  the  conduct  of  the  aristocracy  towards  the  people 
may  now  be  such  as  to  let  this  matter  remain  undiscussed  for 
ever. 

But  as  to  the  tithes  and  other  property  which  was  handed 
over  from  the  Catholic  clergy  to  the  Protestant  clergy,  that 
is  held  by  the  latter  as  it  w^ets  held  by  the  former;  namely^ 
in  trust  by  the  clergy  for  public  purposes;  and,  of  course, 
as  it  was  before  taken  by  Act  of  Parliament  from  one  set  of 
men,  and  given  in  trust  to  another  set  of  men,  it  may  now 
be  taken  and  disposed  of  by  Act  of  Parliament,  for  what- 
ever purposes  may  appear  to  the  parliament  to  be  best.  To 
^eny  this,  is  really  to  be  impudent ;  the  thing  is  as  plain  as 
the  fact  of  light  or  of  dark. 

Lest,  however,  an  objection  should  be  made  to  the  anti-* 
quity  of  these  Acts  of  Parliament,  and  lest  it  should  be 
said,  that  when^the  church  became  Protestant  the  tenure 
of  the  clergy  became  absolute^  and  untouchable  even  by  the 
parliament,  let  us  see  what  the  parliament  has  done,  in  this 
i^y,  in  modern  times,  and  even  very  recently.  In  1713, 
and  again  in  1813,  an  Act  was  passed  to  Jix  the  sums  that 
the  holders  of  livings  should  give  to  their  curates ;  that  is 
to  say,  to  compel  them  to  give  the  curates  certain  salaries, 
or  portions  out  of  the  produce  of  the  livings.    This  clearly 


1st  Jaituary,  1831.  151 

shows  that  the  livings  were  deemed  public  property ^  andb 
merely  held  in  trust  by  the  parsons  and  bishops ;  for,  what, 
would  have  been  said,  if  the  parliament  had  passed  a  law  to^ 
compel  gentlemen,  farmers,  tradesmen,  and  manufacturers,  to 
pay  their  servants,  journeymen,  and  labourers,  at  a  certain  rate  ? 
This  would  have  been  to  interfere  with  the  distribution  of 
private  property,  and  would  have  been  an  act  of  tyranny;^ 
but,  in  the  other  case,  it  was  an  act  of  duty,  because  thQ 
parsons  and  bishops  hold  the  property  in  trust  for  publia 
uses,  and  because  it  was  for  the  benefit  of  the  public,  that 
those  who  did  the  work  of  the  church  should  be  suitably- 
paid  for  their  work. 

Thus,  then,  the  Parliament  took  away,  without  any  con- 
sent of  the  parties,  part  of  the  revenues  of  the  incumbents, 
and,  of  course,  part  of  what  the  patron,  or  owner,  of  thei 
advowson,  called  his  private  property.  But  the  Act  of 
1798,  only  thirty-two  years  ago,  was  still  more  complete,  if 
possible ;  for,  by  that  Act,  a  part  of  the  houses  ajtd  lands 
belonging  to  the  church,  was  taken  away  for  ever ;  was  sold 
to  private  persons ^  and  the  proceeds  paid  into  the  Exche- 
quer amongst  the  tax-money.  This  was  called  an  "  Act  for 
the  redemption  of  the  land- tax**  It  first  laid  a  perpetual 
ta^  on  all  houses  and  land :  it  then  enabled  people  to  re-^ 
deem  their  land-tax ;  that  is  to  say,  to  purchase  back  part 
of  their  estates  from  the  government!  Some  did  it,  and 
some  did  not;  but  the  parsons  and  bishops  and  college^ 
people  were  compelled  to  sell;  and  they  did  do  it;  and 
the  money  went  into  the  Treasury,  and  was  spent,  by  Pitt, 
in  places,  pensions,  grants,  sinecures,  subsidies,  secret-service 
money,  and  other  purposes,  to  carry  on  the  war  against  Ja- 
cobins, levellers,  and  reformers. 

So  that  here  was,  only  thirty- two  years  ago,  a  part  of  the- 
church-property  actually  taken  away  for  ever,  sold  to  pri- 
vate persons,  and  the  money  taken  by  the  government,  and 


152  Two-penny   Trash; 

applied  to  public  purposes.  If  a  part  could  be  taken  with- 
out any  violation  of  the  settled  laws  of  the  country,  the 
whole  may  be  taken  for  public  purposes  without  any  sUch 
violation.  For,  surely,  it  would  not  be  more  unlawful  to  take 
it  to  yay  off  the  Dehty  for  instance,  than  it  was  to  take  it  to 
help  to  carry  on  a  war,  for  the  support  and  success  of  which 
that  Debt  was  contracted ;  a  war,  too,  in  the  urging  on  of 
which  the  clergy  "were  more  forward  and  more  loud  than  any 
body  of  men  in  the  kingdom. 

Thus,  then,  it  is  agreeable  to  the  laws  and  usages  of  the 
country  to  take  this  property  away,  and  apply  it  to  public 
purposes :  it  is  so  much  property  belonging  to  the  nation^ 
and  the  nation  can  take  it,  and  can  do  what  it  likes  with  it, 
proceeding,  as  it  doubtless  would,  by  due  course  of  law.  If 
there  be  any  one  in  the  world,  and  creature  now  left  on  earth, 
50  stupid  as  to  believe  that  the  tithes  and  other  church-pro- 
perty have  any  foundation  in  the  laws  of  Gody  and  that  our 
parsons  are  the  successors  of  the  Levites,  the  stupid  beast 
will  keep  the  Sabbath,  I  hope,  and  not  Sunday.  I  hope  he 
will  kill  the  paschal  lamb,  and  offer  up  burnt  offerings  ;  that 
he  will  eat  no  blood,  bacon,  or  hares  or  rabbits.  The  Levites 
had  only  the  tenth  of  the  increase,  and  not  a  tenth  of  the 
cro'p;  next  they  divided  the  increase  with  the  "poor,  the 
widow,  and  the  stranger  : "  and,  lastly,  they  had  no  worldly 
inheritance,  could  own  neither  house  nor  land,  and,  indeed, 
could  have  no  'property  to  themselves. 

No  foundation  have  tithes,  or  church-property,  on  the 
Mosaic  Law.  And  as  to  Christ  and  his  apostles,  not  one 
word  do  they  say  to  give  countenance  to  such  a  claim ; 
-while,  on  the  other  hand,  they  say  quite  enough  to  satisfy 
any  man  that  they  never  intended,  never  so  much  as  thought 
of,  such  a  mode  of  maintaining  a  Christian  teacher.  In  the 
first  place  our  Lord  declares  the  Law  of  Moses  to  be  abro- 
gated.    He  sets  aside  even  the  Sabbath.     And  when  the 


1st  January,  1831.  153 

Pharisee  in  the  parable  vaunted  that  he  paid  tithes  of  all 
that  he  possessed,  the  rebuke  he  received  is  quite  sufficient  to 
show  the  degree  of  merit  that  Christ  allotted  to  that  sort  of 
piety;  and,  indeed,  this  parable  seems  to  have  been  used  for 
the  express  purpose  of  exposing  the  cunning  of  the  then  Jew- 
ish priests,  and  the  folly  of  their  dupes  in  relying  on  the 
efficacy  of  paying  tithes. 

But  what  do  we  want  more  than  the  silence  of  our  Savi- 
our as  to  this  point  1     If  the  tenth  of  the  *'  increase ''  (for  it 
was  not  the  crop,  or  gross  produce)  was  intended  by  him 
still  to  be  given  to  the  teachers  of  religion,  would  he,  who 
was  laying  down  the  new  law,  have  never  said  a  single  word 
on  so  important  a  matter  ?     Nay,  when  he  was  taking  leave 
of  his  apostles  and  sending  them  forth  to  preach  his  Word, 
so  far  is  he  from  talking  about  tithes,  that  he  bids  them  take 
neither  purse  nor  scrip,  but  to  sit  down  with  those  who  were 
willing  to  receive  them,  and  to  eat  what  people  had  a  mind 
to  give  them,  adding,  that  "  the  labourer  was  worthy  of 
his  hire  J*     That  is  to  say,  of  food,  drink,  and  lodging,  while 
he  was  labouring.    And  is  it  on  this,  the  only  word  Jesus 
Christ  ever  says  about  compensation  of  any  sort ;   is  it  on 
this  that  Christian  teachers  found  their  claim  to  a  tenth  of 
the  whole  of  the  produce  of  a  country  l     If  this  be  the 
way  in  which  they  interpret  the  Scriptures,  it  is  time,  in- 
deed, that  we  read  and  judge  for  ourselves !    Oh,  no !    Not 
a  word  did  our  Saviour  say  about  tithes  ;  not  a  word  about  - 
rich  apostles,  but  enough  and  enough  about  poor  ones ;  not 
a  word  about  worldly  goods,  except  to  say,  that  those  who 
wished  to  possess  them  could  not  be  his  disciples ;  enough 
about  rendering  to  Ccesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  but 
not  a  word  about  rendering  to  the  priests  any  thing  at  all. 
In  short,  from  one  end  of  the  Gospel  to  the  other,  he  preaches 
humility,  lowliness,  an  absence  of  all  desire  to  possess 

h5 


154  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

worldly  riches,  and  he  expressly  enjoins  his  disciples  ^^  freely 
to  give y  as  they  had  freely  received." 

And  as  to  the  apostles,  what  did  they  do?  Did  they  not  act 
according  to  the  command  of  Christ  ?  Did  they  not  live  in 
common  in  all  cases  where  that  was  practicable  ?  Did  they 
not  disclaim  all  worldly  possessions  ?  In  Corinthians,  chap. 
ix.  St.  Paul  lays  down  the  rule  of  compensation;  and  what 
is  it  ?  Why,  that  as  the  "  ox  was  not  to  be  muzzled  when 
he  was  treading  out  the  corn,"  the  teacher  was  to  have  food, 
if  necessary,  for  his  teaching,  for  that  God  had  **  ordained 
**  that  they  which  preach  the  Gospel  should  live  of  the 
"  GospeV  But  is  here  a  word  about  tithes  ?  And  would  the 
apostle  have  omitted  a  thing  of  so  much  importance  ?  In 
another  part  of  the  same  chapter,  he  asks,  ^' Who  goeth  a 
warfare  at  any  time  at  his  own  charges'^'*  Which  clearly 
shows,  that  all  that  was  meant  was  entertainment  on  the 
way,  or  when  the  preacher  was  from  home;  and  when  the 
preaching  was  on  the  spot  where  the  preacher  lived,  it  is 
clear,  from  the  whole  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  from 
the  whole  of  the  Epistles,  that  no  such  thing  as  compensation, 
in  any  shape,  or  of  any  kind,  was  thought  of.  St  Paul, 
in  writing  to  the  teachers  in  Thessalonia,  says,  *'  Study  to  be 
*'  quiet  and  do  your  own  business,  and  to  work  with  your 
**  oivn  hands  as  we  commanded  you'^^  1  Thess.  chap.  iv. 
ter.  11.  Andagain,in  2  Thess.  chap,  iii*  ver.  8,  he  bids  the 
teacher  remember,  "  Neither  did  we  eat  any  man's  bread 
"  for  nought;  but  wrought  with  labour  and  travail,  night 
"  and  day,  that  we  might  not  be  chargeable  to  any^ 

SECOND  :  the  justice  of  the  measure. — It  is  clear,  then, 
that  tithes  and  clerical  revenues  rest  upon  no  scriptural 
authority.  What  do  they  rest  upon  ?  How  came  they  ever 
to  be  ?  What  were  they  founded  for  ?  And  are  they  now 
applied  to  the  uses  for  which  they  were  given  in  trust  to  the 


1«T  Jakuary,,  1831.  155 

clergy  ?     Do  the  clergy  apply  them  agreeably  to  the  inteu* 
tion  in  which  the  tithes  originated?     In  answering  these 
questions,  we  shall  arrive  at  a  perfect  conviction,  that  it  is 
just  to  adopt  the  measure  in  favour  of  which  I  am  arguing. 

When  I  was  a  boy,  or,  before  I  had  read  with  attention,  I 
often  wondered  how  our  forefathers  came  to  be  such  fools  as 
to  give  one  tenth  part  of  all  the  corn,  hay,  roots,  calves, 
lambs,  wool,  pigs,  eggs,  milk,  fruit,  greens,  underwood,  and  of 
the  profit  on  mills  and  of  the  waters  and  of  the  animals  at 
pasture.  That  they  should  have  been  such  fools  as  to  give, 
in  every  parish,  all  this  to  one  man  of  the  parish,  and  that 
man,  too,  an  unmarried  man.  I  thought  them  great  fools, 
and  lamentedjthat  we  had,  hitherto,  been  such  fools,such  tame 
and  stupid  fellows  as  to  adhere  to  their  laws.  But,  upon 
looking  into  the  matter,  I  found  that  our  old  papas  had  done 
no  such  a  thing,  I  found  that  they  had  given  only  a  third  of 
the  tenth  to  the  priests ;  another  third  to  bicild  and  repair 
the  churches ;  and  the  other  third  to  relieve  the  poor,  and^ 
indeed,  that  third  which  the  priest  had,  was  to  enable  him 
to  keep  hospitality,  and  relieve  the  stranger.  Oh !  said, 
I,  this  had  sense  in  it ;  and  it  is  WE,  conceited  we,  enlight-^ 
ened  we,  who  are  the  fools,  who  let  the  parsons  take  all,  and 
who  relieve  the  poor,  and  build  and  repair  the  churches  by 
taxes  which  we  screw  from  one  another,  and  who,  while 
we  have  a  mutton-bone  on  our  tables,  silently  see  the  par- 
sons wallowing  in  luxury.  We,  enlightened  we,  are  the 
real  fools. 

At  a  meeting  recently  held  in  Kent,  Lord  Winchilsea 
was  asked  whether  he  would  vote  for  the  abolition  of  tithes. 
To  this  he  answered  in  the  negative,  observing,  that  tithes 
were  instituted  by  our  *^  PIOUS  ancestors.''  Our  ances* 
tors  were  pious,  but  they  were  not  tame  "  enlightened '' 
fools.  This  is  the  story  that  the  parsons  always  tell  us; 
but  they  do  not  tell  us  the  whole  of  the  story.    They  leave 


156  Two-penny  Trash; 

US  to  believe  that  our  "  pious  ancestors  "  were  of  this  same 
church  that  now  exists ;  and  with  reason;  for  it  would  be 
awkward  indeed  in  them  to  extol  the  piety  of  those  from 
whom  they  took  the  tithes  away.  But  I  will  tell  you,  my 
friends,  the  whole  story;  it  is  short,  and  is  as  follows: 
Christianity  was  not  introduced  into  England,  until  600 
years  after  the  birth  of  Christ.  About  the  meanwhile  it  had 
made  its  way  over  the  greater  part  of  the  continent  of 
Europe,  and  the  Pope  of  Rome,  as  the  successor  of  St. 
Peter, had  long  been  the  head  of  the  church  About  the  year 
600,  the  then  Pope,  whose  name  was  Gregory,  sent  a  monk, 
whose  name  was  Austin,  with  forty  others  under  him,  from 
Rome  to  England  to  convert  the  English.  They  landed  in 
Kent,  and  the  king  of  Kent  (there  were  several  kingdoms  in 
England  then)  received  them  well,  became  a  convert,  and 
built  houses  for  them  at  Canterbury.  The  monks  went 
preaching  about  Kent,  as  our  missionaries  do  amongst  the 
Indians.  They  lived  in  common,  and  on  what  people  gave 
them.  As  the  Christian  religion  extended  itself  over  the 
country,  other  such  assemblages  of  priests,  as  that  at  Can- 
terbury, were  formed  ;  but  these  being  found  insuflScient,  the 
lords  of  great  landed  estates  built  churches  and  parsonage- 
houses  on  them,  and  endowed  them  with  lands  and  tithes, 
after  the  mode  in  fashion  on  the  continent.  The  estate,  or 
district,  allotted  to  a  church,  now  became  a  parish ;  and  in 
time,  dioceses  arose,  and  the  division  became,  as  to  territory, 
pretty  much  what  it  is  now. 

Here,  then,  we  learn  the  motives  of  our  "  pious  ancestors" 
in  making  these  endowments  of  tithes.  They  wished  to  have 
a  priest  always  at  hand  to  teach  the  ignorant,  to  baptize 
children,  to  visit  the  sick,  to  administer  comfort,  to  be  the 
peace-maker,  the  kind  friend  and  the  guide  of  his  people. 
TJor  were  these  tithes  to  be  devoured  or  squandered  by  the 
priests.    They  were  divided  thus :  *^  Let  the  priests  receive 


1st  January,  1831.  157 

'•  the  tithes  of  the  people,  and  keep  a  written  account  of  all 
^*  that  have  paid  them  ;  and  divide  them,  in  the  presence 
*'  of  such  as  fear  God,  according  to  canonical  authority. 
**  Let  them  set  apart  the  first  share  for  the  building  and 
^'  ornaments  of  the  church ;  and  distribute  the  second  to 
"  the  poor  and  strangers  with/  their  own  hands,  in  mercy 
**  and  humility ;  and  reserve  the  third  part  for  themselves.'*^ 

The  very  motives  for  building  churches  and  endowing- 
them  with  tithes  prove,  that  the  constant  residence  of  the 
priest,  or  parson,  in  his  parish  was  his  first  duty ;  for  whaf 
was  the  endowment  for  else  ?  And  I  state,  upon  authority 
as  good  as  any  that  history  can  present,  that  for  nearly  five 
hundred  years  after  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  no  such 
custom  prevailed  in  England  as  of  hiring  curates,  or  other 
deputies,  to  supply  the  place  of  the  parson  who  had  the 
living.  Our  "  pious  ancestors"  were  therefore  sensible  as 
well  as  pious  :  they  required  duties  in  return  for  what  they 
settled  on  the  parsons.  These  parsons  were,  besides,  let  it 
be  remembered,  unmarried  men ;  and  if  we  are  to  impute 
(and  which  in  justice  we  ought)  the  institution  of  tithes  to 
the  piety  of  our  ancestors,  we  must  also  impute  to  their  pze^z^ 
the  establishing  of  a  priesthood  not  permitted  to  marry! 
We  must  impute  this  to  their  piety,  and,  indeed,  to  their 
wisdom  also  ;  for  how  obvious  are  the  reasons  that  the  tithegr 
never  could  be  applied  according  to  the  intention  of  the 
founders,  if  the  priests  had  wives  and  families  to  maintain  f 

Thus,  then,  if  we  be  to  appeal  to  our  pious  ancestors,  and 
pious  and  praiseworthy  we  must  allow  them  to  have  been  * 
if  Lord  Winchilsea  and  the  parsons  will  insist  upon 
referring  us  to  these  our  ancestors  as  examples  for  us 
to  follow  as  to  this  great  matter  of  tithes,  we  have  ta 
remind  him  and  the  parsons  of  these  eight  thingsf: — 1.  That 
the  doctrines  of  the  Catholic  church,  which  our  pious 
ancestors  endowed  with  the  tithes,  are,  by  our  present  par* 


158  Two-penny  Trash; 

sons,  declared  to  be  idolatrous  and  damnable. — 2.  That  our 
parsons  call  the  head  of  that  church  Antichrist  and  the 
whore  of  Babylon. — 3.  That  the  "  Society  for  Propagating 
Christian  Knowledge"  advertise  no  less  than  fourteen  separate 
works,  written  by  our  bishops  and  archbishops,  "  against 
popery,''  that  is  to  say,  against  that  very  faith  to  support 
which  our  pious  ancestors  instituted  tithes. — 4.  That  we 
may  be  allowed  to  wonder  how  it  can  have  come  to  pass, 
that,  as  the  errors  of  our  pious  ancestors  were  found,  at  the 
end  of  ten  hundred  years,  to  be  so  damnable,  the  tithes 
which  they  granted  were  not  at  all  erroneous,  but,  as  the 
parsons  now  tell  us,  were  ''  dedicated  to  God"  ! — 5.  That 
our  pious  ancestors  gave  only  a  third  of  the  tithes  to  the 
parsons. — 6,  That  they  required  the  parson  to  expend  a 
third  on  the  building  and  ornaments  of  the  church. — 7.  That 
they  required  him  to  distribute  the  other  third  to  the  poor 
and  the  stranger  with  his  own  hands,  in  mercy  and  humility. 
— And,  8.  That  they  required  him  to  be  constantly  resident 
and  not  to  marry,  and  compelled  him  to  take  an  oath  of  celi- 
bacy, in  order  that,  divested  of  the  cares  and  anxieties  in- 
separable from  a  wife  and  family,  he  might  wholly  devote 
himself  to  the  service  of  God,  and  be  in  very  truth  that  which 
the  Bible,  from  one  end  to  the  other,  requires  a  priest  to  be, 
a  faithful  and  diligent  shepherd  of  the  religious  flock  :  and, 
for  being  which  merely  in  name,  such  woes  are  pronounced 
against  priests  both  by  prophets  and  apostles. 

Of  these  eight  things  we  have  to  remind  the  parsons,  when 
they  tell  us  to  look  at  the  conduct  of  our  pious  ancestors ; 
and  especially  when  they  tell  us  to  follow  the  example  of 
those  ancestors  with  regard  to  tithes.  These  were  the  con- 
ditions on  which  the  tithes  were^  given,  and  this  might  be 
truly  said  to  be  dedicating  them  to  God.  Accordingly  we 
find  that,  as  long  as  the  tithes  were  applied  to  these  pur- 
poses, there  were  no  poor-rates ;  no  Vagrant  Act  was  re- 


I 


1st  January,  1831.  159 

quired  ;  no  church-rates  were  demanded  of  the  people  ;  and 
yet  all  those  magnificent  cathedrals  and  those  churches  were 
built,  the  beauty  and  solidity  of  which  are  now  the  monu- 
ments of  their  great;  and  of  our  little,  minds. 

But  is  it  not  worth  our  while,  even  if  it  were  only  for  the 
curiosity  of  the  t^ing,  to  inquire  how  the  tithes,  dedicated 
to  a  faith  which  our  parsons  hold  in  abhorrence,  came  to  be 
possessed  by  our  parsons  ?  Is  it  not  worth  our  while  to  in- 
quire, how  it  came  to  pass,  that,  when  our  parsons  found  the 
faith  of  our  ancestors  so  erroneous  as  to  be  called  idolatrous 
and  damnable ;  when  they  found  the  faith  so  bad  as  to  re- 
quire rooting  out  even  by  most  cruel  penal  laws ;  how  it  came 
to  pass,  that,  when  they  found  the  faith  so  utterly  abomi- 
nable ;  how  it  came  to  pass,  that  when  they  were  pulling 
down  images,  confessionals,  and  altars,  and  were  sweeping 
away  all  the  other  memorials  of  the  faith  of  our  pious  an- 
cestors, they  should  have  suffered  the  parsonage-houses,  the 
glebes,  the  tithes,  and  even  Easter-ofiferings,  to  remain,  nay, 
and  have  taken  these  to  themselves,  and  to  be  enjoyed,  too, 
not  in  the  third  part,  but  in  whole  ? 

The  tithes  were,  as  we  have  seen,  given  to,  and  enjoyed, 
or  rather  administered  by,  the  Catholic  parsons  for  about 
ten  out  of  the  twelve  hundred  years  of  their  existence  in 
England.  For  the  first  five  out  of  the  ten,  no  such  thing 
as  non-residence,  or  stipendiary  curating,  was  known.  After 
the  Normans  invaded  England  these  things  began ;  and,  in 
time,  by  one  means  or  another,  by  kings,  nobles,  and  monas- 
teries, the  parishes  were  greatly  robbed  of  their  tithes,  and 
miserable  vicars  and  curates  were  placed  in  the  churches  ia 
numerous  cases.  At  last  that  event  which  is  called  the 
Reformation  took  place ;  and  the  struggle  ended  in  the 
overthrow  of  the  Catholic  and  the  establishment  of  the  Pro-' 
testant  church,  that  is  to  say,  a  church  which  protests  against 
the  Catholic  faith,  to  uphold  which  the  tithes  had  beea  in- 
stituted. 


160  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

The  new  parsons,  though  they  protested  against  the  faith 
of  the  Catholic  parsons,  did  by  no  means  protest  against 
the  tithes  which  had  been  granted  to  uphold  it.  They  pro- 
fessed to  keep  all  that  was  good,2iud  to  cast  off  all  that  was 
bad,  of  the  old  church.  What  was  good  and  what  bad,  we 
laymen  may,  perhaps,  not  be  competent  judges  of;  but  we 
Icnow  that  they  kept  very  carefully  all  the  parsonage-houses, 
all  the  glebes,  all  the  tithes,  all  the  Easter-offerings,  all  the 
surplice  fees  ;  and  that  they  cast  off  constant  residence,  di- 
vision of  tithes  into  thirds,  keeping  the  .churches  in  repair, 
living  unmarried,  and  relieving  the  poor  and  the  stranger 
with  their  own  hands  in  mercy  and  humility.  Such,  in- 
deed, was  their  keeping  and  such  their  casting  off,  that  the 
Catholics  said,  that  Protestant  person  meant  a  person  who 
protested  against  anybody  having  the  church -property  but 
himself! 

If,  indeed,  the  parsons  did  the  duty  which  thisir  vows 
oblige  them  to  do,  it  would  then  be  another  matter.  What 
is  the  contract  which  they  make  with  the  nation  ?  What 
is  the  obligation  which  they  take  upon  them  ?  What  are  the 
duties  that  they  most  solemnly  engage  to  perform  ?  At  their 
ordination  they  solemnly  profess,  that  they  "  believe  that  they 
*^  are  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  take  upon  the  office,  to 
*'  serve  God  for  the  promoting  of  his  glory,  and  the  edify- 
*^  ing  of  his  people."  They  declare  also,  that  they  are 
**  determined,  with  the  Scriptures,  to  instruct  the  people 
**  that  shall  he  committed  to  their  charge;  they  promise 
**  that  they  will  give  \ht\r  faithful  diligence  always  so  ta 
**  minister  the  doctrine  and  sacraments  and  the  discipline  of 
**  Christ,  as  the  Lord  hath  commanded,  and  as  this  realm 
*'  hath  received  the  same  according  to  the  commandment  of 
*'  God ;  that  they  will  teach  the  people  committed  to  their 
^'  cure  and  charge  with  all  diligence  to  keep  and  observe  the 
"  same,  that  they  will  be  ready  with  all  faithful  diligence 


1st  January,  1831.  161 

^^  to  banish  and  drive  away  all  erroneous  and  strange 
"  doctrines  contrary  to  God's  word :  and  to  use  public 
'^  a7id  private  admonitions  and  exhortations,  as  well  to  the 
*'  sick  as  to  the  whole,  within  their  cures,  as  need  shall  re- 
^*  quire  and  occasion  be  given ;  that  they  will  be  diligent  in 
"  the  prayers  and  in  the  reading  of  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
"  and  in  such  studies  as  help  to  the  knowledge  of  the  same, 
"  laying  aside  the  study  of  the  world  and  the  flesh ;  that 
"  they  will  be  diligent  to  frame  and  fashion  themselves  and 
"  their  families  according  to  the  doctrine  of  Christ,  that 
'^  they  may  be  wholesome  examples  and  spectacles  to  the 
^^  flock  of  Christ ;  and  that  they  will  maintain  and  set  for- 
"  wards  quietness,  peace,  and  love,  among  all  Christians,  but, 
^<  especially  among  them  that  are  or  shall  be  committed  to 
"  their  charge."  And  they  most  solemnly  ratify  and  con- 
firm these  declarations  and  promise  by  receiving  the  holy^ 
communion. 

Now,  how  are  they  to  do  these  things,  or,  indeed,  any 
part  of  these  things,  unless  they  be  at  the  places  where  they 
have  so  solemnly  promised  to  do  them  ?  How  are  they  ta 
promote  God's  glory  and  edify  his  people  5  how  are  they  to 
instruct  the  people  committed  to  their  charge ;  how  are  they 
to  explain  the  Word  to  the  people  of  their  cure ;  how  are 
they  to  be  ready  with  faithful  diligence  to  banish  and  drive 
away  all  erroneous  and  strange  doctrine  contrary  to  God's 
word,  and  especially  from  amongst  them  that  are  committed 
to  their  charge  :  how  are  they  to  fulfil  any  of  these  solemn 
promises,  if  they  absent  themselves  from  the  very  spot 
where  the  people  committed  to  their  charge  reside  ?  And 
if,  having  already  one  living,  they  grasp  at  another  or  two, 
how  do  they  obey  the  injunction  of  the  apostle,  to  avoid 
filthy  lucre  ;  how  do  they  obey  Christ,  who  bids  them  freely 
give ;  how  do  they  fulfil  their  own  promise,  made  at  the 
altar  and  with  such  awful  solemnity,  to  lay  aside  the  study 


162  Two-penny  Trash; 

of  the  world,  and  how  do  tliey'show  themselves  followers  of 
the  apostle,  who  bids  them  "  be  subject  one  to  another,  and 
*^  be  clothed  with  humility,  seeing  that  God  resisteth  the 
**  proud  and  giveth  grace  to  the  humble  ]  '* 

Is  it  not  notorious  that  of  the  eleven  thousand  livings  in 
England  and  Wales^  one  half  are  without  resident  incum^ 
bents ;  and  is  it  not  equally  notorious  that  there  are    thou- 
sands of  parsons  each  of  whom  has  more  than  one  living  ; 
is  it  not  also  notorious   that  those  who  do  the  work  of  the 
■church,  have  hardly  a  bare  sufficiency  to  eat  and  drink  ;  is 
it  not  notorious  that,  while  there  are  bishoprics  worth  from 
ten  to  forty  thousand  a  year,  one  million  and  six  hundred 
thousand  pounds  have,  within  the  last  thirty  years,  been 
voted  out  of  the  taxes  on  our  malt,  soap,  candles,  sugar, 
&c.,  "  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  clergy  of  this  church  /'  is 
it  not  notorious  that  many  of  the  present  beneficed  clergy 
received  military  and  naval  half  pay  for  many  years,  and 
the  income  of  their  benefices,  at  the  same  time ;  and  is  it  not 
notorious   that,  in  Ireland,  the  case  is  still  more  flagrant 
than  it  is  here  ?     How,  then,  do  the  parsons  fulfil  the  pro- 
mises made  at  their  ordination  ?     How  do  they  obey  the 
injunctions  of  the   apostles:    *'  Preach  the  word;  be  in- 
"  stant  in  season,  out  of  season ;  reprove,  rebuke,  and  exhort 
**  with  all  long-sufifering  and  doctrine/'     The  apostles  tell 
the  teachers  to  teach  publicly  "  from  house  to  house ;  to 
"  show  themselves  in  all  things  patterns  of  good  works ;  to 
'*  be  examples  in  word,  in  conversation,  in  charity^  in  faith, 
**  in  purity;  to  warn  every  man,  to  teach  every  man  in 
"  wisdom,  that  they  may  present  every  man  perfect  in  Jesus 
**  Christ."     The  teachers  of  the  Gospel  are  called  Ambas- 
sadors, Stewards,  Shepherds,  Watchmen,  Guides,  Lights, 
Examples.     But   how  are  they  to  be  any  of  these,  if  they 
seldom  or  never  see  any  of   those  whom  they  have  pledged 
themselves  to  teach  ? 


1st  January,  1831.  16 


o 


Jesus  Christ  says,  '^  Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and  preach 
"  the  Gospel  unto  every  creature ;  and,  lo  I  I  am  with  you 
*^  always,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world."  And  the 
apostle  Paul,  amongst  his  numerous,  urgent,  and  solemn  ex- 
hortations, says,  "  I  take  you  to  record  this  day,  that  I  am 
**  pure  from  the  blood  of  all  men  ;  for  I  have  shunned  not  to 
*^  declare  unto  you  the  counsel  of  God.  Take  heed,  there- 
**  fore,  unto  yourselves,  and  to  all  the  flock  over  which  the 
"  Holy  Ghost  hath  made  you  overseers,  to  feed  the  church 
'*  of  God,  which  he  hath  purchased  with  his  own  blood.'' 
And  he  exhorts,  too,  that  the  teachers  should  do  their  duty 
for  religion  sake,  and  not  for  the  sake  of  gain.  A  bishop  i& 
not  to  be  ^'  greedy  of  filthy  lucre,  nor  covetous." 

The  parsons  tell  you  to  read  the  Bible,  and  there  are 
plenty  of  Bible  Societies  to  put  the  book  into  your  hands. 
The  worst  of  it  is,  you  do  not  read  it  attentively.  But 
read  it  now;  see  what  it  says  about  parsons  who  do  not  re* 
side  on  their  livings.  The  prophet  Zechariah  says,  "  Woe 
to  the  idle  shepherd  that  leaveth  theJlockS^  "  Woe  "  says  the 
prophet  EzEKiEL,  *'  Woe  be  to  the  shepherds  of  Israel  that 
**  do  feed  themselves !  Should  not  the  shepherds  feed  the 
**  flocks  1  Ye  eat  the  fat ^  and  ye  clothe  you  with  the  wool, 
"  ye  kill  them  that  are  fed ;  but  ye  feed  not  thefiock.  The 
*^  diseased  have  ye  not  strengthened,  neither  have  ye 
"  healed  that  which  was  sick,  neither  have  ye  bound 
"  up  that  which  was  broken,  neither  have  ye  brought 
"  again  that  which  was  driven  away,  neither  have  ye  sought 
*'  that  which  was  lost ;  but  with  force  and  with  cruelty 
*'  have  ye  ruled  them.  And  they  were  scattered^  because 
'*  there  is  no  shepherd."  And  is  not  the  flock  scattered  in 
England  now  ?  Are  not  the  country  churches  empty,  and  do 
not  the  people  wander  about  after  all  sorts  of  sects  1  There  is, 
in  reality,  no  longer  any  flock.  The  prophet,  contemplating 
Such  a  case,  adds  :  "Thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  behold,  lam 
**  against  the  shepherds  ;  and  I  will  require  my  flock  at 


l64  Two-penny  Trash; 

*'  their  hand,  and  cause  them  to  cease  feeding  the  flock; 
*'  neither  shall  the  shepherds  feed  themselves  any  more ; 
**  for  I  will  deliver  my  Jiock  from  their  77iouth,  that  they 
**  may  not  be  w,eat  for  them.** 

It  is  clear,  from  all  that  we  behold,  that  the  church,  as  by 
law  established,  has  not  answered,  or,  at  least,  that  it  does 
not  now  answer,  the  purposes  for  which  it  was  intended.  It 
does  not  hold  the  people  in  the  bond  of  faith ;  it  does  not 
promote  peace  and  good-will ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  creates 
eternal  divisions  and  feuds,  while  it  consumes  uselessly  a 
large  part  of  the  produce  of  the  land,  and  takes  from  the 
farmer  the  means  of  giving  you,  the  labourers,  wages  suffi- 
cient for  you  to  support  your  wives  and  children.  Besides 
this,  this  establishment  is  a  hot-bed  for  breeding  gentlemen 
and  ladieSf  who  must  be  kept  without  work,  all  their  lives, 
somehow  or  other;  and  taxes  must  be  raised,  and  are  raised, 
upon  you,  and  upon  all  of  us,  to  pay  them  salaries,  stipends, 
pensions,  or  something  or  other.  This  is  so  now,  and  it  must 
he  so  as  long  as  this  establishment  shay  exist.  The  sons  of 
the  parsons  are,  for  the  far  greater  part,  kept  by  the  public 
in  some  shape  or  other ;  the  husbands  of  the  daughters  are 
kept  in  the  same  way;  they  engross  the  offices,  and  the  employ- 
ments, and  shut  out  the  sons  of  farmers  and  tradesmen.  I 
do  not  blame  the  government  for  this ;  for,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  it  must  be  so ;  it  is  a  necessary  effect  of  the  esta- 
blishment. It  is  the  only  establishment  in  the  world,  or  that 
there  ever  was  in  the  world,  the  'priests  of  which  are  al- 
lowed to  marry.  Wherever  there  are.  priests  paid  by  the 
public,  they  are  not  allowed  to  marry;  and  it  is  clear  that 
they  ought  not  to  be  so  allowed ;  for,  otherwise,  what  is  it, 
but  to  tax  the  people  to  keep  a  race  of  men  and  women  to 
breed  persons  to  be  maintained  by  the  public,  and  to  take 
away  fro7n  all  the  industrious  classes  the  chance,  even  the 
chance y  of  sharing  in  the  honours  and  powers  of  the  country. 


1st  January,  1831.  165 

It  is,  in  short,  an  establishment  which  makes  the  people 
keep  fathers  and  mothers,  that  they  may  breed  children  for 
them  to  keep  also !  And  such  a  thing  never  was  heard  of 
before  in  the  whole  worlflk 

My  friends,  labourers  of  England,  there  is  a  PARSON, 
of  the  name  of  MALTHUS,  who  has  written  a  book  to  show- 
that  7J0U  breed  too.  fast ;  and  in  order  to  check  your  breed- 
ing,  he  proposes,  that,  if  you  be  married,  you  shall  have  no 
relief  from  the  parish, hut  shall  be  left  to  starve.  The 
Scotch  and  Irish  place-hunters,  w^ho  live,  or  want  to  live,  oa 
your  labour,  applaud  this  parson  Malthus  to  the  skies,  and  so 
do  our  pensioners  and  parsons.  But  neither  Malthus  nor 
any  of  his  crew  ever  propose  to  check  the  breeding  of  the 
PARSONS  ayid  the  PENSIONERS !  Think  of  that. 
They  grudge  YOU,  who  make  all  the  food,  clothing,  houses, 
and  fuel;  they  grudge  you  parish  relief;  but  they  do  not^ 
grudge  to  parsons  and  pensioners  paid  out  of  the  taxes 
raised  on  you  !  Oh  !  the  insolent  ruffians  !  Is  there  not  a 
just  and  merciful  God»;  and  is  his  hand  for  ever  to  be  stayed  I 
The  ruffians  have  seen,  of  late  years,  a  million  and  a  half 
of  guineas  given  by  the  parliament,  out  of  the  taxes,  **for 
the  RELIEF  of  the  POOR  CLERGY  of  the  church  of 
England ;"  they  know  that  YOU  pay  a  large  part  of  these 
taxes ;  and  yet  they  would  refuse  you  relief  in  cases  even 
of  the  extremest  distress ! 

But  as  long  as  this  establishment  shall  exist,  so  long  must 
it  continue  to  inflict  evils  on  the  country  ;  it  must  of  neces- 
sity take  from  the  farmer  and  tradesman  and  merchant  and 
manufacturer  the  means  of  paying  just  wages  to  those  whom 
they  employ ;  and  there  is  no  man  can  doubt,  that  it  is  the 
want  of  just  wages  that  is  the  cause,  and  the  only  cause,  of 
the  present  troubles  of  the  country.  Well,  then,  ought  not 
this  cause  to  be  removed  ?  And  how  is  it  to  be  removed  ? 
without  legally  taking  away  those  tithes  and  other  public  pro- 


166  Two-penny  Trash^ 

perty,  the  leaving  of  which  in  the  hands  of  the  parsons  pro- 
duce this  calamitous  cause.  The  establishment  does  not  now 
^answer  the  purposes  for  which  it  was  intended ;  those  who 
receive  the  revenues  are,  in  great  part,  absent  from  the  pa- 
rishes ;  the  churches  are  empty ;  the  meeting-houses  are 
full ;  those  who  do  the  work  of  the  church  are  living  in 
penury;  and,  more  than  all  the  rest,  the  present  distribution 
of  this  property,  helps  to  make  the  working-people  so  poor 
and  miserable,  that  they  must  either  die  with  starvation,  or 
resort,  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  means  of  sustaining 
life,  to  acts  of  violence  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  the  coun- 
try. And  is  it  not,  therefore,  just  to  take  this  property 
away  ?  ''  THE  SAFETY  OF  THE  PEOPLE  IS  THE 
SUPREME  LAW."  How  can  they  be  safe,  then,  as  long 
as  they  are  constantly  exposed  either  to  starvation  or  to  the 
consequences  of  unlawful  acts  ?  And  if  they  must  (and  I 
have  shown  that  they  must)  be  constantly  thus  exposed,  as 
long  as  this  establishment  shall  exist,  are  the  people  to  perish, 
are  we  all  to  be  ruined  and  destroyed,  for  the  sake  of  those 
who  profit  from  this  establishment  ?  Is  that  just  ?  Why, 
then,  it  is  just  to  repeal  and  abolish  this  establishment. 

THIRD  :  the  measure  is  necessary.  This  I  have,  in- 
deed, just  showed;  but  there  are  still  further  reasons  why 
this  measure  is  necessary.  The  weight  of  taxes  is  one  great 
cause  of  the  distress  and  the  troubles  of  the  country.  Your 
wages  go,  one  half,  to  pay  taxes.  More  than  the  half  of 
these  taxes  are  required  to  pay  the  interest  of  what  il' called 
the  NATIONAL  DEBT.  It  is  impossible  to  collect  such 
heavy  taxes  without  a  large  array.  Therefore,  it  is  in  vain 
to  hope  for  relief  as  long  as  this  Debt,  to  its  present  amount, 
shall  exist.  The  Debt-people  receive  more  than  they  ought 
to  receive.  Every  man  of  sense  says  this,  and  the  present 
First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  (a  very  clever  man)  proposed  to 
take  30  per  cent,,  or  nearly  a  third  part,  away  from  the  Debt- 


1st  January,  1831,  167 

people.  Now,  if  this  Debt  were  justly  reduced,  and  tke 
tithes  and  other  church-property  sold,  and  the  money  paid 
to  the  Debt-people,  the  Debt  would  be  nearly  paid  ofiF,  the 
anny  might  be  disbanded^  the  heavy  taxes  taken  off,  and 
the  nation  be  again  great  and  happy,  the  working-people 
well  fed  and  clad  as  their  great-grandfathers  were,  and 
the  employers  and  their  property  in  a  state  of  safety.  And 
are  we  to  forego  all  this  ;  are  we  to  give  up  the  hope  of  ever 
seeing  England  happy  again,  merely  for  the  sake  of  uphold- 
ing this  establishment  of  parsons  and  bishops!  It  is  just 
that  the  Debt- people  should  be  paid  less  than  they  are  now 
paid ;  every  one  must  confess,  and  every  one  does  confess, 
this ;  but  every  one  feels  and  says  that  it  would  be  injustice, 
monstrous  injustice,  to  call  down  the  curses  of  all  mankind,  to 
take  one  single  farthing  from  the  Debt-people,  so  long  as 
the  clergy  continue  to  receive  their  enormous  emoluments. 
And  now,  my  friends,  I  have,  I  think,  proved  the  legality ^ 
the  justice,  and  the  necessity  of  this  measure.  I  have  no 
dislike  to  the  religion  of  the  church  in  which  I  was  born 
and  bred  and  have  always  continued ;  I  have  great  respect 
for  many  of  the  working-clergy ,  whom  I  know  to  be 
amongst  the  most  worthy  of  men,  and  whose  lot  would  be 
mended  by  the  measure  XhtX  I  propose,  as  religion  and  mo- 
rality would  also  be  advanced  by  it.  I  am  actuated  by  no 
antipathy  or  personal  ill-will :  I  wish  for  the  measure,  for  the 
reasons  that  I  have  given  ;  and  I  exhort  you  to  join  cordially 
with  your  employers  in  petitions,  and  in  all  other  lawful 
efforts,  to  cause  that  measure  to  be  adopted,  and  that,  too, 
immediately,  being  thoroughly  convinced  that,  until  it  be 
adopted,  England  will  never  again  know  happiness. 

I  am. 
My  good  and  honest  Friends, 

Your  faithful  servant, 

Wm.  COBBETT. 


168      Two-penny  Trash;  1st  January,  1831. 

P.  S.  What. I  would  wish  to  have  done  with  regard  to  the 
present  parsons  I  will  clearly  state  in  my  next  letter  to 
you ;  but  I  will  say  this  much  now,  that  I  wish  them  to  be 
treated  with  fidl  as  much  lenity  and  indulgence  as  the  Ca^ 
tholic  clergy  were  treated  with,  when  the  tithes  and  other 
church-property  w^ere  taken  from  them ;  and  this,  I  am  sure 
they  cannot  complain  of  with  any  show  of  decency. 


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COBBETT'S 
TWO-PENNY    TRAS 

For  the  Month  of  February^    1S31. 


L  A  Letter  to  the  King's  Ministers  on  the  way  to  put  a 
stop  to  the  Fires. 

2.  A  Letter  to  the  Labourers  on  their  Duties  and  their 

Rights, 

3.  A  Letter  to  the  Folks  of  Botley,  on  the  Fire  at  Flem^ 

ing's  house  at  Stoneham  Park, 


King's  Ministers,  Kensi7i§ton,  \7tk  January ,  1?31. 

BefoPvE  I  proceed  to  point  out  to  you  the  means 
alluded  to  in  the  title  of  this  paper,  I  shall  endeavour  to 
convince  you  of  these  three  things:  —  I /That  the  fires 
have  been  set  by  the  labourers,  without  instigation  from 
any  body ;  2.  That  the  means  of  terror,  or  of  punishmejity 
are  not  calculated  to  put  an  end  to  the  fires;  and,  3.  That 
the  fires,  unless  effectually  put  a  stop  to,  may  become  far 
more  extensive  than  they  have  hitherto  been.  It  is  neces- 
-sary,  first  of  all,  that  I  make  good  these  three  propositions ; 
because  unless  you  be  convinced,  and  heartily  convinced, 
of  the  truth  of  them,  you  will  not  listen,  and  it  is  not  reason- 


LoNDON  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Boljt-court,  Fleet-street  ; 
and  sold  by  all,  Booksellers. 

I 


170  Two-penny  Trash; 

able  that  you  should  listen,  to  that  which  I  have  to  ofifer 
■with  regard  to  the  measures,  which  I  think  ought  now  to 
be  adopted  ;  and,  therefore,  the  best  possible  proof  that  I 
can  give  of  my  since-re  and  anxious  desire  to  cause  to  be 
effected  the  great  object  stated  in  the  title  of  this  my  address 
to  you,  is,  to  endeavour  to  implant  this  conviction  firmly  in 
your  minds. 

First,  then,  that  the  fires!have  been  set  by  the  labourers^ 
and  without  instigation.     You  must  be  convinced  of  this, 
or,  you  will  not  listen  for  a  moment  to  the  remedies  which 
'I  have  to  propose..    At  first  thought  on  the  matter,  it  will 
appear  to  be  absurd   to  state  such  a  proposition  as  this, 
especially  after  the  numerous  trials  that  have  taken  place 
without  there  having  appeared,  throughout  the  whole  coun- 
try, one  single  particle  of  evidence  to  give  countencince  to 
the  notion^  that  any  one  fire  in  any  place  had  been  set  by^ 
any  person  but  a  farm  labourer  ;  or  that  any  person  whatso- 
ever, except  a  farm  labourer  or  farm  labourers,  had  instigated 
the  perpetrator  to  the  act.  Scott  Eldon  (I  will  always  when 
speaking  of  this  person  retain  the  word  Scott)  is  reported 
to  have  said  distinctly  that  one  of  the  country  jails  was  full 
of  foreigners,  who  had  -been  committed  for  these  crimes. 
Peel,  Knatchbull,  and  divers  others,  stated  as  a /naffer 
of  course  that  the  fires  had  been  instigated  by  persons  going 
about  in  gigs,  curricles,  post-chaises,  landaus  !    There  was 
a  woman  in  Philadelpliia,who,as  a  quaker  neighbour  told  me, 
imagined  herself  to  be  a  tea-pot,  stretched  out  one  arm  in 
the  shape  of  a  spout,  put  the  other  a-kimbo  to  represent  the 
handle,  and  cried  out  to  every-body  who   came  near  her, 
*'  Pray  dont  break  me  T'       "  What,"  said   my  neighbour 
"  would  thee   have  done  in   that   case,  friend   Cobbett  V* 
*'  Why^'*  said  I,  **  being  a  tea-pot,  I  could  have  taken  care 
that  nothing  but  water  should  have  gone  into  her  in  the 
shape  of  liquid,  and   that  no  solids  should  have  gone  into 


I 


1st  February,  1831.  171 

her  till  she  had  washed  all  the  dirty  linen,  and  had  scrubbed 
every  floor  in  the  house ;"  a  remedy,  by-the-by,  which  I  beg 
leave  to  recommend  to  my  readers  in  general,  if  they  hap- 
pen to  be  troubled  with  wives  with  imaginations  so  extra- 
ordinarily strong. 

Strong,  however,  as  the  indulgence  of  the  husband  had 
rendered  the  imagination  of  this  lazy  she-devil,  it  certainly 
did  not  surpass,  in  point  of  force,  that  of  those  persons  who 
have  ascribed  these  fires,  or  any  part  of  them,  to  the  instru- 
mentality or  instigation  of  any-body  but  the  labourers  them- 
selves ;  and  the  wonder  is  how  any  one  ever  can  have  enter- 
tained such  an  idea.  For  a  good  while  J  believed  that  no 
one  was  sincere  in  his  professions  upon  this  subject ;  but,  at 
last,  I  met  a  gentleman,  a  country  gentleman,  a  considerable 
land'Owner  and  land-cultivator,  a  magistrate  of  long  stand-* 
ing  and  great  experience,  a  public-spirited  man,  not  only  a 
liberal  but  a  generous  man,  a  man  singularly  good,  not  only 
to  his  own  labourers,  but  to  all  round  about  him,  a  con- 
siderate, a  mild,  an  indulgent  man  ;  a  man  of  sincerity  and 
veracity  as  perfect  as  I  have  ever  known  to  exist  in  ma,n  ; 
and  this  gentleman,  while  he  was  ready  to  make  every  apo- 
logy for  the  other  violences,  ascribing  them  to  the  real  suf- 
ferings of  the  people,  told  me  this,  that  *'  as  to  the  Jires,  the 
^'  people  have  certainly  been  instigated  to  those  by  a  SET 
''  OF  CONSPIRATORS  IN  LONDON  T 

I  was  astounded  to  hear  him  utter  these  words.  I  could 
account  for  Scott  Eldon's  foreigners  ;  for,  when  he  talked 
of  the  intelligence  coming  in  a  letter,  one  could  see  that  it 
was  a  hoax.  I  could  account,  without  much  racking  of  my 
brains,  for  the  strong  imaginations  of  Peel  and  Knatchbull, 
and  the  rest;  but  I  really  was  frightened  when  I  heard  this 
gentleman  talking  of  a  conspiracy  in  London  instigating 
the  fires  ;  and,  in  his^case,  I  can  account  for  the  monstrous 
absurdity  only  by  reflecting  on  the  effect  of  the  stories  which 

i2 


172  Two-PENNi"  Trash.; 

the  people  in  the  country  are  continually  hearing  of  the 
surprising  dexterity  and  cleverness,  and  the  profound  wicked- 
ness, that  exists  amongst  the  discontented  spirits  in  London. 
If  this  gentleman  were  to  dwell  a  little  while  in  the  vi- 
cinage of  these  surprisingly  clever  and  discontented  spirits; 
his  alarm  would  pretty  quickly  cease  :  he  would  soon  find, 
that  if  he  could  keep  his  wine  decanter  and  brandy-bottle 
from  them,  that  need  be  his  only  care  ;  and  that  if  he  would 
let  them  have  their  run  at  them,  he  would  find  them  some 
of  the  best-tempered  fellows  in  the  world.  Men  that  talk 
irery  much  are  apt  to  do  very  little  ;  and  I,  if  I  had  ricks 

•  and  barns  at  stake,  should  be  more  afraid  of  the  vengeful 
feelings  of  one  single  labourer,  whose  son  or  brother  I  had 
caused  to  be  imprisoned  or  severely  dealt  with  for  poaching, 
than  I  should  be  of  the  speeches,  the  writings,  and  the  ma- 
chinations of  all  the  discontented  spirits  of  London,  who, 
besides  all  the  rest,  hardly  know  wheat  from  peas  when  they 
see  them  growing,  hardly  know  a  rick  from  a  barn  ;  and 
certainly  do  not  know  a  barn  from  a  stable  ;  are  totally  ig- 
norant of  the  state  of  the  homesteads  and  of  the  means  of 

,  assailing  them  ;  would  be  frightened  out  of  their  wits  at  the 
idea  of  going  along  a  dark  lane  or  over  a  down  by  themselves ; 
and,  in  short,  are  as  incompetent  to  give  instructions  or 
suggestions  in  such  matters  as  the  labourers^ would  be  to 
give  instructions  with  regard  to  getting  up  plays  and  farces 
at  Covent  Garden. 

Yet,  so  loth  are  you  to  acknowledge ;  so  loth  are  the 
land-owners,  the  parsons,  the  bull- frog  farmers,  aye,  and  the 
debt-owners,  too;  so  loth  are  you  all  to  acknowledge  that- 
these  fires  have  proceeded  purely  from  the  minds  of  the 
labourers,  that  you  all  still  cling  to  this  monstrous  idea  of 
extraneous  instigation.  The  cause  of  this  clinging  is  this  ; 
that  you  cannot  acknowledge  that  the  fires  have  proceeded 
purely  from  the  minds  of  the  labourers^  without  tacitly  ac- 


* 


1st  February,  1831.  173 


knowledging  one  of  two  things ;  namely,  that  they  must 
have  had  some  deep  and  irresistible  provocation,  or  that 
Englishmen  are  become  a  totally  altered  people.  There  is 
not  much  to  choose  between  these  two  ;  either  of  them  looks 
pretty  angrily  at  the  government  which  has  existed  for  some 
years  past.  The  fact  is,  that  these  dreadful  acts,  if  ascribed 
to  the  mere  movements  of  the  labourers,  imply  that  they 
have  been  rendered  desperate  by  hunger.  This  implies  that 
they  ought  to  have  had  higher  wages  ;  this  iniplies  that  to 
put  a  stop  to  the  fires  they  must  have  higher  wages;  and 
this  implies  that  many  millions  a  year  must  now  be  taken 
from  the  aristocracy  and  the  church,  or  that  those  many- 
inillions  must  be  taken  from  the  debt-ownerl.  Therefore  it 
is  that  every  effort  is  made  to  ascribe  the  fires,  first  to  fo- 
reigners, next  to  people  travelling  in  landaus  and  post-- 
chaises,  next  to  conspirators  in  London,  and, lastly,  to  writings 
of  various  descriptions,  particularly  ''  cheap  publications J^ 
Why  there  are  no  cheap  publications,  that  1  know  of,  except 
my  poor  Two-PE:!f"NY  Trash,  and  this  I  am  allowed  to 
publish  only  once  in  a  month.  As  to  the  Register;  a 
single  number  of  it  now  amounts  to  nearly  as  much  as  the  . 
Wiltshire  allowance  for  a  week's  food  and  clothing  for  a 
constantly  hard-working  man.  I  know  of  no  cheap  publi- 
cation but  this,  that  goes  regularly  forth,  while  the 
"  Society  for  Promoting  Useful  Knowledge/*  while  the 
church  parsons  with  their  pamphlet  societies;  and  while  the 
nasty,  canting,  lousy  Methodists,  who  inveigle  the  pennies 
even  from  the  servant  girls  ;  wliile  all  these  are  pouring  out 
their  pamphlets  by  millions,  and  all  of  them  preaching  up 
the  doctrine,  that  bacon,  bread  and  beer  corrupt  the  soul  of 
man,  and  that  potatoes,  salt  and-  water,  are  sure  to  lead  to 
eternal  salvation. 

How,  then,  have  the  fires  been  produced  by  speakings 


174  Two-penny  Trash; 

and  writings  ?  and  how  is  a  man  of  sense  to  believe 
that  irom  Dover  to  Penzance,  from  Pevensey  to  Carlisle, 
the  fires  have  been  produced  by  instigations  from  my 
speeches  and  wTitings  ?  Yet,  I  have  been  told,  and  I 
believe  the  fact,  that  the  POST-OFFICES,  particularly  ia 
Sussex,  Hampshire,  and  Wiltshire,  have  been  narrowly 
watched,  in  order  to  discover  some  correspondence  between 
me  and  the  rioters  and  burners.  If  these  watchers  will  but 
stick  to  their  several  posts  till  they  find  a  letter  written  hy 
me,  or  by  any  one  by  my  authority,  not  only  about  rioting 
and  burning,  but  about  any -thing  else,  they  will  be 
amply  punished  for  their  curiosity.  No,  no;  I  have  too 
much  to  write  for  the^  printers,  to  amuse  myself  in  this 
sort  of  way.  To  be  sure  I  cannot  help  what  people  write 
to  me ;  hut  if  the  Secretary  of  State  will  send  a  clerk  to 
read  all  my  letters  over  for  me,  they  will  stand  a  great 
deal  better  chance  than  they  now  stand.  All  that  come 
with  the  postage  not  paid  I  send  back  unopened,  for  the 
amusement  of  the  Duke  of  Richmond ;  and,  if  he  read 
them  all  with  attention,  he  will  have  quite  enough  to  do. 
About  one  half  of  them  are  threatening  letters;  some 
threatening  to  burn  my  house;  some  my  barn;  some  to 
shoot  me[;  some  to  take  me  off  by  other  means.  These 
frequently  come  postage  paid,  and  then  they  immediately  go 
into  a  basket  for  the  maid  to  light  the  fire  With.  Till  I 
began  to  receive  these  burning  letters,  J  used  to  insure ; 
but  I  have  never  done  it  since,  except  in  the  case  of  my 
house  at  Kensington,  which  my  lease  compels  me  to  insure 
for  a  certain  sum  of  money.  I  discovered  too,  that  in  the 
case  of  every  insurance  that  I  had  made,  I  had  paid  nearly 
twice  as  much  to  the  government  in  tax  as  to  the  insurance 
office  for  insurance.  This  deemed  a  payment  to  protect 
me  [against  the  dispensations  of  Providence  and  th«  ill- 
will^of  my  neighbours.     To  the  former  it  was  my  duty  to 


1st  February,  1831.  175 

submit ;  of  the  latter  I  was  not  afraid  ;  and  therefore  why 
should  I  , give  up  my  earnings  for  this  purpose?  Threat- 
ening letters  indeed !  I  have  received  a  hundred  that  I 
could  have  traced  home  to  the  parties  with  no  very  extra- 
ordinary pains ;  and  I  never  made  the  attempt  in  my  life. 
The  post-office  may  be  watched  long  enough  before  any 
letter  is  met  with  from  me  ;  and  whenever  there  be  one, 
it  is  as  Ukely  to  be  found  without  a  seal  as  with  it ;  and 
I  hereby  authorize  and  legally  empower  the  post-office 
people  to  open  all  letters  going  from  me  to  any-body ; 
if  they  afford  them  any  amusement  I  shall  be  very  glad  ;  but 
I  beg  them  not  to  retard  them  on  their  way.  Monstrous  idea, 
that  1  should  be  writing  instigations  to  labouring  men  to 
urge  them  to  commit  felony  !  Monstrous,  however;  as  the 
idea  is,  it  certainly  has  been  entertained. 

To  conclude  under  this  head.  You  have  now  had  trials 
iji  Kent,  Sussex,  Surrey,  Hampshire,  Berkshire,  Wiltshire, 
Dorsetshire,  and  Buckinghamshire,before  some  one  or  other  of 
the  judges.  In  other  counties,  and  in  these  counties,  too,  you 
have  had  trials  for  these  offences,  and  plenty  of  transport- 
ings  and  imprisonings  at  the  Quarter  Sessions.  More  than 
fifteen  hundred  persons,  I  believe,  have  been  arraigned  and 
tried  ;  and,  amidst  the  cries  of  parents,  wives,  and  children, 
under  all  the  terrors  of  separation  or  almost  instant  death, 
ot  one  single  fact  has  come  out,  in  spite  of  rewards  which 
are  perfectly  terrific ;  not  one  single  fact  has  transpired  to 
countenance  the  idea  of  foreign  actors  or  instigators,  of 
instigation  on  the  part  of  conspirators  in  London;  or  of 
extraneous  instrumentality  of  any  sort,  and  therefore  I  hope 
that  you  are  now  satisfied  that  the  acts  have  proceeded 
purely  from  the  minds  of  the  labourers  themselves. 

Second.     That  the  means  of  terror  or  of  'punishment 

are  not  calculated  to  put  an  end  to  the  fires. — It  is  an 

old  saying  that,  if  you  kill  a.  fly^  twenty  files  come  to  his 


176  Two-penny  Trash; 

burying.     The  newspapers  tell  us,  and,  indeed,  we  know 
the  fact  must  be  so,  that  there  is  scarcely  a  village  in  the 
counties  before  mentioned,   arid  particularly  in   Hampshire 
and  Wiltshire,    which  has  not   been,  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  phino^od  into  a  state  of  mourning  in  consequence  of 
the  late  trials   and    their  result.     But,  is   mourning  aWi 
When  men  suffer  for  well-known  and  long-understood  crimes, 
then  there    is   no  apology  to  be  offered   for  them.     Their 
memory  is   grieved,  their  banishment  or  death  lamented; 
but  the  relations  and  friends  acquiesce :  the  Jaw  takes  its 
course,  and  no  vengeful  leelings  are  excited  in  the  survivors. 
You  have  read  the  Birmingham  Petition- for  the  sparing  of 
the  lives  of  the  men  at  Winchester.     If  you  have  not,  I  beg 
you  to  read  it.     The  question,  however,  is  not  w^hat  sort  of 
feelings  the  surviving  labourers  ought  to  entertain  upon  the 
subject ;  but  what  feelings  they  are  likely  to  entertain ;  and 
jubw^  then,  consider  the  effect  of  screaming  m'other^  and  wives 
and  children;  think  of  the  feelings  offathers  for  sons,  brothers 
for  brothers,  friends  for  friends ;  and  consider  that  there  can 
be  scarcely  one  single  man,  amongst  the  labourers  of  Hamp- 
shire and  Wiltshire  especially,  unaffected  in  his  mind  and 
heart  by  these  transactions.     The  Morning  Chronicle,  in 
giving  an  account  of  the  hanging  of  Cooper  and  Cooke,  at 
W^inchester,    last    Saturday,   concludes  the   account  thus: 
*^  There  was  not  a  crowd  of  more  ihan  300  persons,  and  those 
**  chiefly  boys.   Some  of  the  crowd  we  heard  say  they  would 
*^  willingly  give  a  sovereign  for  a  reprieve.  The  moment  the 
*^  drop  fell  most  of  them  went  away.    The  special  constables 
*'  wxre  in  attendance  at  seven  o'clock,  and,  in  fact,  composed 
*^  the  greater  part  of  the  crowd.     Close  under  the  scaffold, 
*' On   some  doors,  w^ere   w^ritten   in   chalk — '  MURDER 
*'*FOR  MURDER!  BLOOD  FOR  BLOOD!''' 

Now,  this  is  what  we  never  see  and  never  hear  of  when 
malefactors  are  executed  at  other  times.     Cooper's  ofl'ence 


1st  February,  1831.  177 

was   riding  at  the  head  of  a  mob,  who  extorted  money 
or  broke  machines,  or  something  of  that  sort.     Cooke's 
oflfence  was  striking  BINGHAM'  BARING  with  a  sledge 
hammer.      But   Baring  was   well  enough  to  appear   and 
give  evidence  against  him ;  and  it  appears  was  seen  imme- 
diately after  the  affair  walking  in  the  streets  of  Winchester ; 
so  that  this  was  very  far  from  being  MURDER ;  and, 
before  the  passing  of  EllenborougKs  Act  it  would  have 
been  an  ASSAULT,  or  punishable   not  even  with  trans- 
portation, but  with  fine  or  imprisonment,  or  both.     Now, 
mind,  the  labourers  are  not  lawyers,  they  know  nothing  of 
JEtlenhorouglis  Act ;    their  estimate  of  crimes   is  tradi- 
tionary; and  it  will  take  a  great  deal  indeed  to  convince 
them  and  to  produce  perfect  acquiescence  in  their  minds 
upon  the  subject  of  this  punishment.     *'  Kill  one  fly  and 
twenty  come  to  his  burying/'     Accordingly  the  very  next 
sentence  in   the   Chronicle  newspaper  is  in  these  words : 
^'  There   have   been  eight  fires  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
"  Blandford  since  Saturday  last.     This  circumstance  will 
"  almost  preclude  the  hope  of  mercy  being  extended  to  the 
**  unhappy  men  now  under  sentence  of  death ! ''     The  same 
newspaper  contains  an   account  of  Jive  fresh  fires  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Norwich ;  and  the  Times  newspaper  of 
Saturday  gives  an  account  of  several  fires  in  Wiltshire,  two 
of  which  it  speaks  of  as  follows :  "  The  first  fire,  which  I 
*'  described  as  illuminating  the  country  for  miles  around, 
*^  was,  I  understand,  on  the  premises  of  Mr.  Rex  worthy, 
**  near  Wilton.     His  dwelling-house,  out-houses,  and  corn- 
"  ricks,  were  all  burnt  to  the  ground.     I  had  not  iime^in 
"  my  way  through  here  to-day  to  get  the  particulars  farther 
^*  than  that  Mr.  Rexworthy  had  been  active  in  bringing 
"  some  of  the  late  rioters  to  justice.     The  second  fire, 
"  which  1  said  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Wi'mborne,  was 
"  of  corn-ricks  only.     These  also  were  the  jproperty  of  a 

i5 


178  Two-penny  Trash; 

'^  person  connected  with  the  late  prosecution^.*^  This 
fire  was  not  near  Wilton  but  near  Heytesbury,  and  it 
was  so  great  that  it  lighted  the  street  at  Fisherton,  though 
^t fifteen  unites  distance  from  it.  I  pray  you  to  look  at 
these  words  from  the  Times  newspaper  !  I  pray  you  to  look 
well  at  the  cause  there  stated  for  this  tremendous  fire. 
Pray  read  these  words  with  attention.  Look  also  in  the 
papers  of  to-day  at  a  great  fire  near  Dover.  Remember  the 
fire  in  Essex  the  other  day,  in  the  very  village  from  which 
poor  Ewan  had  been  taken  to  be  hanged !  From  the 
single  village  of  Pewsey  there  are,  I  am  told,  eleven  'persons 
taken  and  condemned  to  be  transported  ;  and  when  the 
carrier  from  whom  the  story  came  to  me  came  away, 
mothers  were  crying  for  their  sons,  wives  for  their  hus- 
bands, children  for  their  fathers,  sisters  for  their  brothers, 
and,  in  short  ,all  was  frantic  lamentation.  Of  this  village 
one  of  Lord  Radnor^s  brothers  is  the  Rector,  and  he  is  also 
a  Prebend  of  Salisbury,  where  his  elder  brother  has  been 
sitting  on  the  bench  with  the  Special  Commissioners. 

Without  stopping  to  comment  on  these  facts,  and  with- 
out directing  your  eyes  towards  Lincolnshire,  where  the 
fires  appear  to  be  blazing  more  furiously  than  ever,  let  me 
ask  you,  now,  whether  here  be  not  enough  to  convince  you, 
that  the  means  of  terror  or  of  punishment  are  not  calcu- 
lated to  put  an  end  to  the  fires  ?  This  is  a  most  important 
question  for  you  to  consider ;  for,  if  these  means  fail,  then 
there  is  no  hope  without  the  adoption  of  some  other.  Be- 
seeching you  to  reflect  most  seriously  upon  this  point,  I  now 
proceed  to  the  next  proposition,  which  is,  if  possible,  of  still 
more  importance. 

Third,  that  the  fires^  unless  effectually  put  a  stop  to, 
may  become  far  more  extensive  than  they  hitherto  have 
been, — King's  Ministers,  you  know  very  little  about  the 
habits  or  the  means  of  the  labouring  people,     I  do  not 


1st  February,  IBS'!.  179 

impute  this  to  you  as  a  fault :  your  way  of  life ;  your  own 
habits  and  pursuits  and  associations  have  precluded  you 
from  possessing  this  knowledge  ;  and,  as  to  obtaining  it 
from  others,  few  persons  approach  you  who  do  possess  it ; 
and  very  rarely  indeed  will  it  happen  that  one  of  these 
will  be  found  honest  enough  to  tell  you  that  you  have  not  ' 
the  power  to  do  that  which  you  wish  to  do.  Power,  to 
induce  it  to  listen  to  objections  to  its  own  effectiveness,  must 
be  in  the  hands  of  those  who  are  endued  with  all  those 

f  rare  qualities  which  induce  wise  and  just  judges  to  listen. 
to  arguments  against  the  competence  of  their  own  jurisdic- 
tion. Hence  it  is  that  you  do  know,  and  that  you  can  know, 
very  little   about   the  real  character,   the  disposition^  the 

'  propensities  and  the  habits  of  the  labourers;  and  especially 
about  the  means  which  they   possess  of  gratifying   their 
vengeful   feelings  whiere,  unhappily,  they   entertain  them. 
There  was  very  little  danger,  comparatively,  in  the  machine- 
breaking,  and  the  sturdy  begging,  or  rioting  and  robbing,  if  it 
must  be  so  called.     These  w^ould  be  effectually  put  a  stop  to 
by  the  transpoftings  and  the  hangings ;   but  as  to  the  fires  it 
was  quite  another  matter,  as  Rex  worthy  has  found  to  his 
cost.     Of  all  the  acts  in  this  world  of  a  criminal  nature, 
the  most  easy  to  perpetrate,  the  least  liable  to  detection, 
the  least  inconvenient  to  the  perpetrator,  is  that  of  setting 
fire  to  out-buildings    and  ricks.     To  convince  you  of  the 
truth  of  this,  what  can  you  need  more  than  perhaps  the 
two  thousand  fires  that  have  taken  place,  and  the  four  or 
five  convictions;  with  regard  to  two  of  which  the  parties 
convicted  declared  their  innocence  with  their  dying  breath  ? 
As  to  the  immediate  means,  I  know  nothing;  but  I  believe 
all  the  stories  about  fire-balls  and  air-guns  to  be  merely 
ridiculous  nonsense.     A  pipe  and  a  match,  or  a  bit  of  linen 
rag,  as  in  the  case  of  the  poor  orphan  Goodman,  in  Sussex, 
are,  I  dare  say,  the  means  generally  used  ;  for,  how  are 


^^0  Two-penny  Trash; 

*  » 

labouring  men  in  general,  or  any  of  them,  indeed,  to  obtain 
any  other  means,  and  to  keep  those  means  by  them  too, 
T^^ithout  the  knowledge  of  others  ? 

Do,  I  pray  you,  look  at  the  situation  of  this  species  of 
property ;   consider  the   utter  impossibility   of  watching  it 
^iiectually.     In  the  case  of  houses,  factories,  or  buildings 
of  any  sort,  which  are  usually  inhabited,   the  case  is  wholly 
different.     Here  the  parties  must  either  be  inmates,  or  must 
commit  the  act  by  open  violence.     It  is  difficult  for  a  man 
€ven  to  set  fire  to  his  own  house  without  detection.     Not  so 
in  the  case  of  farm  produce  and  buildings ;  where  there  is 
no  trace,  no  clue,  nothing  to  lead  to  detection,  if  the  perpe- 
trator be  alone  and  hold  his  tongue ;  and  that  perpetrator 
may  be  your  own  servant  \     And  who  are  to  be  your  ser- 
vants !     Why,  in  Hampshire  and  Wiltshire  particularly,  the 
father,   the  son,  the  brother,   the  uncle,  the   nephew,  the 
cousin,  or  the  friend  of  some  one  who  has   been  hanged, 
transported,  or  manacled,  by  you  or  by  some  one  connected 
with  you.     The  loan-monger,  or  Jew,  or  Scotch  feelosopher 
brute  may  call  the  labourers  of  England  peasantry ;   the 
insolent  vagabonds  who  live  on  their  labour   may  call  them 
ignorant',  calumniate  while  they  starve  them  ;  talk  of  their 
want  of  education.     They  want  no  education  ;  they  under- 
stand their  business  well ;  they  are  not  ignorant,  they  know 
their  rig'hts,  and  the  wrongs  that  are  done  them ;  they  are 
tender  parents  and  dutiful,  loving  children  ;  they  are  obe- 
■dient  and  faithful  servants,  and  kind  and  good  neighbours  * 
they  are  unassuming,  modest,  content  in  their  state  of  life; 
but  they  will  hot,  and  I  thank  God  that  they  will  not,  live 
on  damned  potatoes  while  the  barns  are  full  of  corn,  the 
-cowns  covered  with  sheep,  and  the  yards  full  of  hogs  created 
L'y  their  labour.     Above  all  things  they  are  affectionate ; 
the  parents  love  their  children,  and  the  children  the  parents, 
with  more  ardour  than  is  to  be  met  with  among  the  richer 


1st  February,  1831.  181 

tribes :  the  constant  participation  in  each  other's  hardships 
and  toils  tends  to  bind  them  more  firmly  to  one  another :  if 
you  commit  an  act  of  injustice  towards  one,  the  whole  vil- 
lage feels  it  individually  and  collectively.  Even  the  vil- 
lages themselves  are  connected  with  one  another ;  and  thus  a 
,  whole  coOnty  or  district  is  imbued  with  one  .and  the  same 
vengeful  feeling.  Is_  any  man  so  stupid  as  to  imagine  that 
there  is  a  single  soul  in  Pewsey,  man,  woman,  or  child,  who 
will  not  remember  the  transportation  of  eleven  men  of  that 
village?  ^ 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  farming-stock  is 
all  collected  in  the  homesteads.  If  it  were,  it  would  not, 
that  I  know  of,  add  to  the  security.  I  have  a  barn,  for  in- 
stance, now,  at  Barn  Elm,  one  of  the  largest  that  I  ever  saw 
in  my  life.  It  was  crammed  full  of  corn  in  the  summer,  trod- 
den down  in  the  mows  by  oxen.  Four  men  have  been 
thrashing  there  constantly  from  that  day  to  this,  and  they 
will  be  at  it  some  tiipe  longer.  There  is  no  soul  living  in 
the  farm-house,  and  there  is  no  house  within  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  mile,  the  barn  is  at  all  times  assailable  from  the  . 
bank  of  the  Thames,  which  is  very  close,  and  the  whole  has 
been  uninsured  all  the  time.  Now,  what  protection  had  I 
for  this,  between  three  and  four  hundred  pounds  Avorth  of 
corn,  and,  at  one  time,  seven  hundred  pounds  worth  of  seeds 
into  the  bargain  ?  AVhy»  I  had  the  protection  of  the  good 
will  of  the  working  people,  my  neighbours,  who  never  were 
wronged  or  oppressed  by  me,  and  on  v/hose  good- will  there- 
fore I  had  reason  to  rely.  To  numbers  of  them  I  have  oc- 
-casionally  given  pretty  good  scoldings  and  angry  words;  but 
I  never  did  them  any  injury,  gave  them  no  ground  for  re- 
venge, and  I.  can  truly  say  that  I  never  had  a  moment  of 
inquietude  with  regard  to  the  safety  of  my  property.  Yet^ 
there  has  not  been  one  single  night  during  the  last  three 
months  and  a  half,  when  the  whole  of  this  property  might 


182  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

not  have  been  destroyed,  barn  and  house  and  all,  without  a 
possibility  of  detecting  the  offender,  if  he  had  gone  alone 
and  held  his  tongue  ;  and,  if  I  had  been  generally  hated  in 
the  neighbourhood 5  where  was  I  to  have  found  watchmen, 
and  how  was  1  to  have  prevented  the  watchman  from  setting 
fire  himself? 

I  pray  you  to  observe^  that  to  go  into  a  rick-yard  or  home- 
stead at  all ;  it  is  only  a  trespass  at  the  utmost,  punishable 
to  be  sure  v^dthout  trial  by  jury.  Suppose  a  man  to  be 
found  in  a  rick-yard  or  in  a  barn  without  breaking  in,  with  a 
pipe  in  his  mouth  and  matches  in  his  pocket,  he  is  merely  a 
trespasser.  He  must  actually  set  the  fire  before  he  incurs 
the  guilt  of  committing  the  crime;  and 'in  all  human  pro- 
bability this  species  of  reconnoitre ing  always  takes  place. 
Besides,  every  labourer  in  the  neighbourhood  knows  every 
one  who  lives  in  the  house ;  and  the  labourers  having  been 
driven  from  the  farm-houses,  there  is  seldom  any  male  in 
the  farm-house  except  the  master  and  his  sons,  if  he  have 
any,  and  a  sort  of  a  groom.  These  are  all  away  from 
home  together  very  frequently ;  so  that  in  fact  there  is  no 
protection  at  all  other  than  the  good -will  of  the  neighbour- 
hood. 

But,  how  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  wheat-ricks 
and  oat-ricks  and  barley-ricks  are  not  only  built  out  in  the 
fields,  but  at  a  distance  from  all  dwxlling-houses  whatsoever  I 
How  many  thousands  upon  thousands  of  ricks  of  clover 
\ipland  grass  and  saintfoin  are  built  out  in  the  middle  of  im- 
mense fields,  to  be  given  to  the  sheep  while  they  are  eating 
off  the  turnips  in  winter  !  These  can  have  no  earthly  pro- 
tection but  that  of  the  general  good-will  and  common  con- 
sent of  the  labouring  people.  I  have  seen  thousands  of 
stacks  (in  one  single  ride  of  mine)  of  wheat  and  barley,  as 
well  as  of  hay,  standing  out  at  from  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  a 
mile  distant  from  any  house^tree^  or  hedge.   What  in  all  the 


1st  February,  1831.  183 

world  is  there  but  a  sense  of  moral  right  and  wrong,  to  pre- 
vent the  destruction  of  property  thus  situated,  if  upon 
coming  up  to  a  rick  thus  situated,  a  man  finds  it  guarded 
he  turns  about  and  goes  away,  that 's  all  ?  In  short,  to  shut 
out  the  rooks  from  a  pea-field  of  a  hundred  acres  is  just  as 
easy  as  to  preserve  this  species  of  property  without  the  good- 
will of  the  labourers  ;  or  at  least,  in  defiance  of  their  venge- 
ful feelings.  The  exposition  of  the  law,  as  Scott  Eldon 
called  it,  has  taught  them  the  danger  of  Ellenborough's 
Act,  and  of  the  softened  code  of  George  the  Fourth  :  but 
it  has  not  taught  them  to  be  content  with  potatoes  and 
water. 

Besides  these  dangers  to  barns  and  stacks,  are  there  no 
dangers  to  Jieldsoi  corn  ?  A  gentleman  mentioned  this  to 
me  the  other  day  as  the  greatest  danger  of  all.  A  piece  of 
wheat,  barley,  rye,  or  oats,  fit  for  the  sickle  or  the  scythe, 
set  fire  to  on  the  windward  side,  would  be  demolished  in  a 
twinkling ;  and  here  the  facility  of  execution  and  the  safety 
of  the  perpetrator  are  so  complete.  Almost  every- where  there 
are  foot-paths,  or  roads  of  some  sort ;  and  if  there  be  not,  and 
if  the  perpetrator  be  found  out  of  the  road,  a  trespass  is  his 
ofience  at  the  most.  Here  detection,  except  by  a  man's  own 
confession,  seems  to  be  absolutely  impossible.  And  you  the 
king's  ministers  should  be  informed,  that  farmers  are  talking 
of  this  every-where.  I  know  nothing  of  the  immediate 
means  of  setting  fire  in  this  way ;  Samson  did  it  by  tying 
brands  of  fire  to  the  tails  of  young  foxes  ;  our  fellows  would, 
most  likely,  not  do  the  thing  in  so  open  a  manner,  though 
as  yet  there  is,  I  believe,  no  law  making  it  felony.  I  think 
it  is  only  a  trespass,  subjecting  the  party  to  action  of  da- 
mages. It  is  a  deed,  which,  if  done  maliciously,  and  with- 
out monstrous- provocation,  ought  to  be  punished  with 
death;  but,  the  truth  is,  that  until  the  hellish  workings  of 
loan-mongers  came  into  the  world,  law-givers  never  imagined 


184  Two-penny  Trash; 

the  existence  of  a  state  of  society  in  which  such  laws  would 
be  necessary  :  they  never  imagined  the  existence  of  a  state 
of  society  when  the  whole  body  of  the  labourers  would  be 
the  deadly  enemies  of  the  occupiers  of  the  land  ;  a  state  of 
society  which  it  is  impossible  should  exist  for  any  length  of 
time  without  producing  something  very  like  the  dissolution 
of  that  society. 

Now,  king's  ministers,  if  you  be  convinced,  as  I  hope 
you  are,  that  the  fires  have  been  set  by  the  labourers  with- 
out instigation  from  any-body  ;  that  the  means  of  terror  or 
of  punishment  are  not  calculated  to  put  an  end  to  the  fires  ; 
and  that  the  fires^  unless  effectually  put  a  stop  to,  may  be- 
come far  more  extensive  than  they  hitherto  have  been;  if 
you  be  convinced  of  these  truths,  as  I  hope  you  are,  it  only 
remains  for  me  to  point  out  to  you  what  I  deem  the  proper 
and  effectual  means  of  putting  a  stop  to  these  fires;  and 
these  means  are  as  follows  : 

1.  To  issue  a  proclamation  pardoning  all  the  offenders  of 
every  description,  whether  tried  or  not,  upon  their  entering 
into  sureties  to  keep  the  peace  for  a  year,  and  bringing  back 
those  who  have  already  been  sent  away,  and  including  them 
in  the  pardon  on  the  lik^  terms.  Oh  I  Gentlemen,  think  of 
the  joy,  think  of  the  happiness  wdth  which  you  thus  fill  all 
the  bosoms  in  all  the  villages  in  these  beautiful  counties ! 
And  thiij^k  of  the  gratitude  with  which  you  would  fill  those 
bosoms  towards  yourselves ;  and  above  all  things  think  of 
the  blessings  which,  coming  from  the  hearts  of  fathers  and 
mothers  and  children  and  brothers  and  sisters,  you  would 
bring  down  upon  the  head  of  your  royal  master  ! 

2.  To  repeal  Sturges  Bourne's  two  bills,  and  thereby 
restore  to  the  rate-payers  their  rights,  restore  the  power  of 
the  native  overseers,  and  restore  to  the  justices  of  the  peace 
their  former  power  of  ordering  relief,  without  which  the 
indigent  poor  can  have  no  sure  protection. 


1st  February,  1831.  185 

3.  To  pass  an  act,  making  it  a  misdemeanour  punishable 
with  heavy  fine  and  imprisonment,  for  any  overset:ir  or  other 
person  in  parochial  authority,  to  subject  the  indigent  poor 
to  work  Uke  beasts  of  burden,  to  put  them  up  at  auction,  or 
otherwise  wajitonly  to  degrade^them,  taking  as  the  preamble 
of  the  bill  thgct  text  of  holy  writ  which  says,  *'  Oppress 
not  the  poor  because  he  is  poor/'      -  . 

4.  To  repeal  all  the  acts  which  have  been  passed  relative 
to  the  game  since  the  late  king  George  the  Third  mounted 
the  throne,  and  particularly  that  act  which  punishes  poach- 
ing with  transportation,  which  act  has  filled  the  county  jails 
with  prisoners,  which  has  trebled  the  county  rates,  v^hich 
has  thrown  a  burden  on   all  the  people  in  order  to  preserve 

> 

the  sports  of  the  rich,  which  has  filled  the  breasts  of  all  the 
villagers  of  England  with  vindictive  feelings,  which  has 
been  the  cause  of  endless  affrays  between  poachers  and 
keepers,  and  which,  in  conjunction  with  EllenborougVs  act, 
has  brought  scores  of  men  to  the  gallows. 

5.  To  pass  an  act  to  repeal  and  utterly  abolish  Ellen- 
borough's  act,  which,  by  marking  it  a  capital  felony  to  strike 
a  man  wiUi  a  heavy  instrument  without  killing  him,  or  to 
use  deadly  weapons  in  your  ow^n  defence  against  a  game- 
keeper, though  without  killing  him,  puts  the  striker  in  the 
one  case,  and  the  defender  in  the  other,  upon  a  level  with 
the  wilful,  premeditating,  cool,  and  cruel  murderer,  tends 
to  confound  all  notions  of  discrimination  in  crime,  tends  to 
harden  men's  hearts,  and  weaken  in  them  every  sense  of 
justice  and  humanity. 

Now,  Gentlemen,  these  are,  in  my  firm  conviction,  the 
only  effectual  means  of  putting  a  stop  to  the  fires,  which 
BO^  terrify  and  disgrace  this  once  great  and  happy  Eng- 
land. That  they  are  easy  of  execution  and  speedy  and  quiet 
you.know  well ;  for,  you  know  that  they  could  all  be  accom- 
plished in  about  forty-eight  hours  after  the  meeting  of  par- 


I 

1^6  Two-PEVNY  Trash; 

liameot ;  and  you  know  that  the  proclamation  may  be  issued 
to-morrow,  and  that  is  the  great  thing  of  all.  The  four 
Acts  of  Parliament  would  be  passed  amidst  the  shouts  of  the 
whole  kingdom.  I  propose  to  you  nothing  new,  be  it  ob- 
served ;  not  only  nothing  revolutionary,  but  nothing  new  do 
I  propose  ;  nothing  but  a  return  in  four  apparently  unim- 
portant particulars  to  the  long-established  laws  of  the  land. 
Nothing  do  I  propose  touching  the  property  of  any  body  of 
persons ;  nothing  to  meddle  with  any  institution  of  the 
country,  even  so  far  as  to  correct  its  acknowledged  abuses ; 
but  I  simply  propose  an  act  of  graciousness  and  goodness 
which  would  reflect  eternal  honour  on  yourselves  and  on  the 
King,  the  love  of  whose  people  to  him  it  is  your  first  duty  to 
^preserve  ;  and  I  propose  to  you  the  repeal  of  four  Acts  which 
you  yourselves,  upon  reflection,  must  lament  to  see  in  the 
statute-book.  f 

And,  Gentlemen,  if  youbeliev  e  that  these  measures  would 
extinguish  the  fires,  you  will  not,  I  am  sure,  sufifer  false 
pride  to  restrain  you  from  the  performance  of  a  duty  so  sa- 
cred. There  is  no  remedy  but  that  which  goes  to^.the  root 
of  the  evil.  That  root  is  in  the  iiearts  of  the  people :  you 
must  extract  the  root,  or  tear  out  the  heart,  or  the  evil  must 
remain.  1  meddle  not,  in  this  case,  with  the  rate  of  wages, 
or  with  any  other  detail :  restore  the  law  ;  restore  protection 
to  the  labourer,  and  he  and  his  employer  will  speedily  come 
to  an  equitable  adjustment  of  their  respective  claims.  If 
you  have  even  a  misgiviHg  upon  your  minds  upon  the  iub- 
ject,  disdain  me,  I  pray  you,  as  much  asyou  please;  but  do 
not  disdain  the  advice  which  I  have  respectfully  tendered 
you,  and  which  I  press  upon  you  with  all  the  earnestness 
and  anxiety  that  the  heart  of  man  is  capable  of  entertain- 
ing. Thus,  at  any  rate,  I  have  done  what  I  deemed  to  be 
my  duty ;  to  you  I  must  noy  leave  the  latter,  with  this  as- 
surance, however,  that,  if  you  follow  this  advice,  amongst  all 


1st  February,  1831/  187 

the  millions  in  whose  heart  you  will  create  feelings  of  grati- 
tude, in  no  one  will  you  create  more  than  in  that  of 

Wm.  COBBETT. 

TO    THE 

LABOURERS  OF  ENGLAND,  ON  THEIR  DUTIES 
AND  THEIR  RIGHTS. 

Kensington^  24:th  January y  1831. 
Dear  Fellow-countrymen, 

You  have  always  been  dear  to  me,  whose  greatest  pride 
it  is,  that  I  was  born  and  bred  amongst  you ;  who  has,  in 
his  travels  about  the  world,  never  seen  any  people  so  in- 
dustrious, so  sincere,  so  virtuous,  parents  so  tender,  children 
so  afifectionate,  servants  so  willingly  obedient,  friends  so  steady 
and  so  true.  Your  character  and  your  conduct  have  always 
made  you  dear  to  me ;  no  time,  no  distance,  has  weakened  my 
regard  for,  or  my  anxiety  for,  your  welfare  ;  from  across  the 
seas  I  addressed  you ;  through  the  walls  of  a  prison  you 
heard  my  voice ;  my  heart  has  always  been  gladdened  by 
your  happiness,  a.nd  saddened  by  your  calamities ;  but, 
f  you  have  always  been  dear  to  me,  you  are  doubhj  dear  to 
we  now,  when  your  afflictions  are  so  great  and  so  various, 
and  when  I  am  cheered  with  the  hope  of  seeing  you  once 
more  the  happy  people  that  our  grandfathers  and  grand- 
mothers were. 

In  this  important  crisis,  pray  hear  me  patiently,  while  I 
speak  to  you  of  your  duties  as  will  as  of  your  rights :  for, 
n  demanding  the  latter,  you  ought  not  to  forget  the  former  ; 
duties  and  rights  go  together  ;  and  he  who  refuses  to  per- 
form the  first,  tacitly  abandons  his  right  to  the  last.  Good 
food,  raiment,  and  all  the  necessaries  of  life,  the  labourer  has 
a  right  to  ;  but  that  right  is  founded  on  his  performing  the 
duty  of  labouring ;  or  on  his  being  willing  to  perform  it. 
It  is  of  great  importance  that  you  understand  this  matter 
clearly  *  and  I  will  now  endeavour  to  enable  you  to  do  it. 


188  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

There  was  a  time  when,  in  every  country  in  the  world, 
there  were  no  laws,  and  no  such  thing  as  property.  The 
people  used  the  earth  and  all  its  produce  as  they  pleased ; 
that  is  to  say,  each  man  took  whatever  he  wanted,  if  his 
strength  or  cunning  would  allow  him  to  do  it.     No  one  ac- 

.  knowledged  the  superiority  of  any  other  :  might  gave  right ; 
strength  and  wisdom  were  superior  to  weakness  and  folly: 
and  there  was  no  other  superiority  or  inferiority  acknowledged 
amongst  men.  This  was  called  living  under  the  law  of  na- 
ture. When  God  put  it  into  the  hearts  of  men  to  change 
this  state  of  things,  and  to  make  rules  and  laws  for  the  ob- 
servance of  the  whole,  they  agreed  that  the  whole  of  the 
community,  or  body  of  people,  should  enforce  these  laws 
against  any  one  or  more  that  broke  them.  The  great  law  of 
all  was  this  ;  that,  in  future,  every  man  should  keep  to  him- 
self; should  call  his  own;  should  be  able  to  apply  to  his 
own  use  solely ;  that  which  he  had  got  by  his  labour.  For 
instance,  John  Stiles,  when  living  under  the  law  of  nature, 

'  might  take  a  piece  of  land,  and  cultivate  it,  and  have  a  crop 
of  wheat  growing  on  it ;  but,  when  fit  for  sickle,  Tom  Nokes, 
a  great  deal  stronger  man  than  Stiles,  might  come  and  cut 
the  wheat  and  carry  it  away  and  let  Stiles  have  none  of  it. 
It  is  not  likely  that  men  would  be  so  villanously  unjust  as 
this,  or  that  the  rest  of  the  people  would  be  so  base  as  to 
stand  by  and  to  see  Stiles  thus  bereft  of  his  wheat,  and 
iiave  nothing  left  to  exist  upon,  perhaps,  but  a  few  wheel- 
barrows full  of  damned  potatoes  ;  this  is  not  likely  ;  but  it 
might  happen,  and  sometimes  -did  happen,  perhaps,  and, 
therefore,  all  the  people  agreed  to  enter  into  a  society,  to 
make  rules  that  should  give  Stiles  an  exclusive  right  to  his 
crop,  and  that  should  punish  such  a  fellow  as  Nokes  as  a 
robber  if  he  came  to  take  the  crop  away. 

Here,  my  friends,  you  see  the  origin  oi property,  which 
word  means  a  thing  which  belongs  to  a  person's  self,  and  a 
thing  that  nobody  else  has  any  right  to.     But  observe.  Stiles 


1st  Febuuary,  183^1.  189 

had  no  property  in  the  crop  till  he  created  it  by  his  labour  ; 
and  that,  therefore,  labour,  and  labour  only,  is  the  sole 
foundation  for  any  property  whatsoever.  Man's  first  duty, 
then,  is  to  labour  in  some  way  or  other  in  order  to  raise  his 
means  of  living.  If  his  father,  for  instance,  have  laboured 
before  him,  and  has  given  or  left  him  the  fruit  of  his  labour, 
he  has  as  good  a  right  to  that  as  if  it  were  the  fruit  of  hisi 
own  labour ;  a  man's  next  duty  is,  to  refrain  from  taking  by 
force  or  by  fraud,  the  property  of  another  man  ;  for,- to  pro- 
tect men  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  property  was  the  great 
end  in  forming  civil  society.  Perhaps  it  would  not  be  diffi- 
cult to  prove,  that  men  who  are  compelled  to  work  for  their 
bread,  are,  provided  they  earn  a  sufficiency  of  food  and  of 
raiment  and  other  necessaries  of  life,  as  happy  and  even 
happier  than  those  who  are  not  compelled  to  work  for  their 
bread  ;  b\it  at  any  rate,  such  is  the  nature  of  things,  such  is' 
the  "order  of  the  world,  that  there  always  have  been  and 
always  must  be  some  very  rich  and  some  very  poor,  and 
great  multitudes  not  rich;  but  in  a  just  state  of  things,  there 
nev^er  will  be  great   multitudes  steeped    in  poverty.     The 

order  of  the  world  demands    that  some  shall  think   while 

» 

others  work  ;  that  some  shall  make  and  execute  the  laws 
to  which  all  are  to  yield  obedience.  Poverty,  therefore, 
even  in  its  extreme  state,  gives  no  man  a  right  to  view  his 
rich  neighbour  with  an  evil  eye,  much  less  to  do  him  mis- 
chief on  account  of  his  riches.  If  the  laws  be  impartial  in 
themselves,  and  be  executed  with  impartiality,  every  man's 
conscience  will  tell  him,  that  it  is  his  bounden  duty  to 
yield  them  a  cheerful  obedience,  and  further,  to  yield  re- 
spect and  honqur  to  those  who  are  charged  with  the  execa- 
tion  oi^the  laws.  ' 

Such  are  the  great  duties  of  all  men  in  civil  society ;  and 
God  forbid  that  these  principles  should  ever  be  rooted  out 
of  the  hearts  of  the  very  best  and  most  virtuous  of  all  man- 
Jcind,  the  agricultural  labourera  of  this  land,  so  favoured  by 


190  Two-PEXNY  Trash; 

God  Almighty,  and  for  so  many  ages  the  freest  and  hap- 
piest country  in  the  world.  But,  my  friends,  men  did  not 
enter  into  civil  society  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  upon 
themselves  duties  only  :  they  had  another  object ;  namely, 
thatof  creating  and  enjoying  ri^f^^s.  Just,  indeed,  as  we 
have  seen  in  the  case  of  John  Stiles,  who  had  his  crop  of 
wheat  taken  away  by  the  stronger  man  Nokes,  who  left  him 
nothing  but  a  few  wheel-barrows  full  of  accursed  potatoes, 
and  all  their  natural  consequences,  poverty  of  blood,  leprosy, 
scrofula,  pottle  belly,  and  swelled  heels !  Now,  whenever 
civil  society  produces  such  a  state  of  things;  when  a  laborious 
man  Jike  John  Stiles  is  treated  in  the  same  way  that  Nokes 
treated  him,  that  civil  society  has  not  answered  its  purpose. 
Labour,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  foundation  of  all  property, 
and  must  always  be  the  foundation  of  property.  The 
labourer,  therefore,  has  a  property  in  his  labour ;  and,  as 
St.  James  says  in  his  Epistle,  and  as  Moses  and  his  Apostles 
and  Jesus  Christ  himself  say,  to  rob  the  labourer  of  his  hire, 
that  is  to  say,  to  take  from  him  or  to  withhold  from  him  the 
due  reward  of  his  labour,  is  the  greatest  crime  that  man  can 
commit  against  God. 

The  rights  of  the  labourer,  first  to  have  food,  raiment, 
fuel,  lodging,  medical  and  spiritual  comfort,  in  return  for  his 
labour,  and  all  these,  too,  in  quantity  and  quality  sufficient 
for  the  preservation  of  his  life,  health,  and  vigour.  Next, 
if  he  be  unable  to  work,  unable  to  earn  a  sufficiency  for  his 
family,  or  unable  to  obtain  work  so  as  to  obtain  that  suf- 
ficiency ;  in  either  of  these  cases,  he  and  his  family  have  a 
right  to  have  a  sufficiency  supplied  out  of  the  superfluities 
of  those  to  whom  the  law  of  civil  society  has  secured  more 
than  they  want.  This  claim  of  the  poor  man  is,  as  Judge 
Blackstone  states,  founded  in  the  very  first  principle  of  civil 
society ;  for  it  cannot  be  believed  that  men  can  have  as- 
sented to  enter  civil  society  for  any  purpose  other  than  that 
of  the  benefit  of  the  whole ;  it  cannot  be  believed  that  a 


1st  February,  1831.  191 

million  of  men  for  instance,  entered  into  civil  society  in 
order  that  a  couple  of  thousand  should  have  all  the  meat 
and  all  the  bread  and  all  the  good  clothing,  and  that  all  the 
rest  should  live  upon  potatoes  and  go  covered  with  miserable 
rags.  No  man  upon  earth,  unless  he  be  one  who  lives  upon 
the  labour  of  others,  will  pretend  to  believe  that  men  entered 
into  civil  society,  in  order  that  those  who  did  no  w^ork,  that 
led  idle  lives,  that  created  nothing,  should  have  bread  and 
ilour  and  beer  and  clothing  and  all  sorts  of  good  things  a 
hundred^ times  more  than  they  wanted;  while  those  that 
laboured  and  made  all  the^se  things,  were  compelled  to  live 
upon  a  miserable  watery  root  or  die  with  starvation. 

Such  are*  the  duties  and  such  the  rights  of  labouring 
men.     Our  forefathers,  who  well  understood  those  duties 
and  those  rights,  cheerfully  performed  the  one   and  amply 
enjoyed  the  other.  They  had  an  abundance  of  meat,  of  bread, 
and  of  all  the  fruits  of  the  earth ;  they  were  clothed  through- 
out in  good   w^oollen  and  linen  ;  they   had   great  store  of 
household  goods  and  of  every-thing  to  make   life  easy  and 
pleasant;  and  when  old  age  or  widowhood,  or  the  orphan 
state,  or  accident,  or  any  circumstance  producing  indigence, 
befel  them,  the  priest  of  the  parish  maintained  them  out  of 
the  tithes,  administering  to  their  wants  as  the  law  enjoined, 
"  with  his  own  hands  in  charity,  humility,   and  mercy." 
And  this,  observe,  was  a  RIGHT  which  they  enjoyed,  and 
that^  too,  a  right  as  perfect  as  that  of  any  man  to  his  house 
or  his  land.    When  our  country  was  bereft,  by  means  which 
I  have  not  now  the  room  to  describe,  of  that  species  of  pro- 
tection for  the  poor,  the  poor-law  was  passed  to  supply  the 
place  of  that  protection ;  to  parochial  relief,  therefore,  the 
aged,   the   w^idow,  the   orphan,  the    infirm,  amongst  the 
labouring  people,  have  just  the  same  right  as  their  fore- 
fathers had  to  that   w^hich  was  administered  to  them  in  so 
just  and  kind  and  Christian -like  a  manner. 

That  the  ministers  and  the  Parliament  may  be  pleased  to 


192   Two-PENj^Y  Trash;   1st  February,  1831. 

« 
listen  to  the  advice  which  I  have  so  respectfully  tendered  to 
them  in  the  foregoing  letter ;  that  you  may  live  as  happy 
lives  as  our  forefathers  lived,  and  that  we  may  all  see 
harmony  once  more  restored  in  England,  is  the  sincere 
prayer  of  Your  faithful  Friend, 
'  Wm.  COBBETT. 

TO    THE 

LABOUIUNG  PEOPLE  OF  BOTLEY. 

Kensington, [t^4th  January y  1831. 
Ix  Ts^o.  IV.  of  this  work,  I  addressed  you  on  the  subject 
of  FLEMING'S   (Willis)   speech,  made  against  me,   al  a 
dinner  at  Botley^  where  one  of  the  keen  Warners  was 
in  the  chair  at  one  end  of  the   table.       They  EXULTED 
at  the  circumstances  that  drove  vie  from  Botley,     In  a 
few  weeks  afterwards  we  read  of  an  attack  on  the  homestead 
of  Willis  (Fleming)  ;  and  no\V,  in  the  weekly  paper  of  yester- 
day,   we   read    the    following: — ''^  A    most  alarming  fire 
*' broke  outlast  night  at  the  seat  of  J.  Fleming,  Esq.  (one  of 
^'  the  members  for  this  county),  at  Stoneham  Park,  four  miles 
*'  from  this  place,  which  threatened  destruction  to  the  man- 
^^  sion,  but  by  the  Vv'ind  changing,  this  disastrous  fire  was  con- 
^'  lined  to  the  two  wings,  which  w'ere  com'pletely  gxUted, 
'*  No  lives  we're  lost,  and  the  property,  we  believe,  was  in- 
'*  sured.     It  has  been  ascertained   beyond  doubt,   that  the 
^'  fire  originated  in  the  apartments  appropriated  to  the  ser- 
'' vants,  therefore  it  is  not  to  he  considered  as  the  work  of 
'^  an  incendiary ,  but  the  pure  result  of  accident'*   What  ! 
the  tico  wings  take  fire  by  accident  at  one  and  the   same 
time  !     This  paragraph  is,  apparently,  taken  from  the  paper 
of  the  very  villain,   at   Southampton  who  published  the  at- 
tack on  me  by  Willis  and  the   Grasp  alls  and  their 
crew.     They  have,  seemingly,   something  else  to  do  noiOy 
than  to  utter  slanders  on  me.     It  will  be   curious  to  hear 
what  they  will  have  to  say,  when  Fleming  gives  the  Grasp- 
alls  the  next  guttle  and  guzzle.     In  the  meanw^hile  I  haVe 
.the  pleasure  to  tell  vou,  that  I  sleep  as  soundly  as  you  do. 

Wm.  COBBETT. 


1^.  B. — Any  of  the  former  Ncs.  may  be  had,  in  any  quantity. — If 
more  than  300  be  ttrken,  at  lis.  a  hundred  :  less,  12s.  4d.  a»  hun- 
dred.— Any  bookseller  will  send  to  London  for  them. 

CPrintecl  by  Wm.  Cobbett,  Johnson's  Court,  Fleet  Street.] 


No.  IX. 


COBBETT'S 

TWO-PENNY  TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  March,  1831;    . 


Puhlished  monthly i  sold  at  \2s,  Orf.  ahundredy  and  for  300,  taken 

at  once,  lis. 


TO    THE 

LABOURERS  OF  ENGLAND, 

Particularly  tho^e  of  Kent ^  Sussex,  Hants,  Wilts,  Dorset, 
Berks,  Norfolk,  and  Suffolk, 

On  the  scheme  now  on  foot  for  getting  part  of  them  away 
out  of  their  native  country. 


Kensington,  1st  March,  1831. 
My  Friends, 

There  is  a  bill  brought  into  Parliament  by  a  man  who 
is  called  Lord  Howick^  and  who  is  the  son  of  Lord  Grey, 
who  is  now  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  and  the  King's 
Prime  Minister.  The  object  of  this  bill,  which  is  not  yet 
become  a  law,  and  which  I  hope  will  not,  is  to  get  a  part 
of  you  to  go  away  out  of  your  country  ;  and  it  is  my  ob- 
ject to  make  you  understand  all  this  matter  clearly  ;  and  to 
show  you  what  the  consequences  would  be  to  you,  and  to 

London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street^ 

and  sold  by  all  Booksellers, 

K 


194  ,  Two-penny  Trash  • 

the  wives  and  children  of  such  of  you  as  have  wives  and 
children,  if  you  were  to  consent  to  be  sent  away.  But  first 
of  all,  let  us  ask  what  reason  there  can  be  for  sending  you 
away  out  of  your  native  country.  It  is  not  intended  abso- 
lutely to  force  you  to  go,  as  men  who  are  transported  are 
forced  to  go  ;  but  it  is  intended  to  get  you  to  give  your  con- 
sent to  be  sent  away  ;  and  let  us  then  ask,  how  it  comes  to 
pass  that  the  government  of  the  country,  that  the  Lords  and 
the  rich  men  who  sit  in  Parliament,  should  wish  to  get  rid 
of  a  part  of  the  people.  You  have  read  in  the  Holy  Scri{>- 
tures,  that  amongst  the  greatest  blessings  which  God  has 
promised  to  an  obedient  and  good  people  is,  a  multiplication 
of  their  numbers,  an  increase  of  them  on  the  face  of  the  earth  ; 
and,  until  now,  it  has  been  a  great  thing  to  boast  of  by  kings 
and  governments,  that  the  number  of  the  people  living  un- 
der them  increased.  Nay,  our  own  Government,  only  thirty 
years  ago,  stated  in  its  public  documents,  that  the  number 
of  the  people  of  England  had  increased  under  it,  and  that 
this  was  a  proof  of  the  goodness  of  the  government.  Nay, 
further,  in  the  year  1796,  Mr.  Pitt,  the  then  Minister,  pro- 
posed to  give  rewards  to  the  labouring  people  in  proportion 
to  the  number  of  children  that  they  brought  up. 

How  comes  it,  then,  my  good  friends,  you,  the  laborious, 
virtuous,  excellent  labourers  of  England,  that  this  same  Go- 
vernment now  wants  to  get  rid  of  part  of  you  ?  How  come* 
it  that  this  same  Government,  which  only  thirty  years  ago 
boasted  of  your  increase  in  numbers  as  a  prc^f  of  its  good- 
ness, now  regards  this  increase  of  its  numbers  as  a  great 
evil,  and  is  devising  means  of  getting  you  away  from  your 
native  land  ?  Before  I  speak  to  you  upon  the  terrible  dangers 
which  will  assail  you  if  you  consent  to  be  sent  away,  let  me 
explain  to  you  the  reason  of  this  change  in  the  language, 
views,  and  conduct  of  the  Government ;  let  me  explain  to 
you  why  it  is  that  it  now  wishes  to  get  rid  of  you.    It  wants 


1st  March,  1831.  195 

to  get  you  away  because  you  make  so  large  a  demand  upou 
the  poor-rates ;  because  you  are  all  become  what  they  call 
paupers;  because,  in  that  character,  you  take  away  so  much 
from  the  farmers,  the  gentlemen  and  others,  who  own  and 
occupy  the  land  ;  and  they  think 'that  if  they  can  make  you 
smaller  in  number,  they  shall  have  less  to  give  you.  But 
they  do  not  stop  to  inquire  what  it  is  that  has  made  you 
paupers ;  what  it  is  that  has  brought  you  into  this  miserable 
and  degraded  state  of  poverty  ;  or,  indeed,  they  need  not  in- 
quire, for  they  must  know  the  cause  very  well :  they  must 
know  thp,t  it  is  the  taxes  and  the  present  application  of  the 
tithes,  and  not  any  fault  of  yours,  not  any  over-increase  of 
your  numbers,  that  have  brought  you  into  that  state  of  pau- 
perism which  makes  you  so  burdensome  to  their  house  and 
land.  All  of  you  who  are  sixty  years  of  age  can  recollect 
that  bread  and  meat,  and  not  wretched  potatoes,  were  the 
food  of  the  labouring  people :  you  can  recollect  that  every 
industrious,  labouring  man  brewed  his  own  beer,  and  drank- 
it  by  his  own  fire-side  ;  you  can  recollect  that,  at  every  wed* 
ding,  and  every  christening,  such  labouring  man  had  a  barrel 
of  ale  in  the  house  provided  for  the  occasion  ;  you  can  recol- 
lect when  the  young  people  were  able  to  provide  money  before 
they  were  married,  to  purchase  decent  furniture  for  a  house, 
and  had  no  need  to  go  to  the  parish  to  furnish  them  with  a 
miserable  nest  to  creep  into ;  you  can  recollect  when  a  bas- 
tard child  was  a  rarity  in  a  village,  and  when  husbands  and 
wives  came  together  without  the  disgrace  of  being  forced 
together  by  parish  officers  and  the  magistrates;  you  can 
recollect  when  ev^y  sober  and  industrious  labourer,  that 
was  a  married  man,  had  his  Sunday-coat,  and  took  his  wife 
and  children  to  church  all  in  decent  apparel ;  you  can  recol- 
lect when  the  young  men  did  not  shirk  about  on  a  Sunday 
in  ragged  smock-frocks,  with  unshaven  faces,  with  a  shirt 
not  washed  for  a  month,  and  with  their  toes  peeping  out  of 

k2 


196  Two-penny  Trash; 

their  shoes,  and  when  a  young  man  was  pointed  at  if  he 
had  not,  on  a  Sunday,  a  decent  coat  upon  his  back,  a  good 
hat  on  his  head,  a  clean  shirt,  with  silk  handkerchief  round 
his  neck,  leather  breeches  without  a  spot,  whole  worsted 
stockings  tied  under  the  knee  with  a  red  garter,  a  pair  of 
handsome  Sunday  shoes,  which  it  was  deemed  almost  a 
disgrace  not  to  have  fastened  on  his  feet  by  silver  buckles. 
There  were  always  some  exceptions  to  this  ;  some  lazy,  some 
drunken,  some  improvident  young  men ;  but  I  appeal  to  all 
those  of  you  who  are  sixty  years  of  age,  w^hether  this  be  not 
a  tnae  description  of  the  state  of  the  labourers  of  England 
when  they  were  boys. 

"Well,  then,  my  friends,  why  is  it  not  so  now  ?  What 
has  been  the  cause  of  the  horrible  change  ?  We  must  ascer- 
tain this  cause  first ;  and  then  contemplate  the  project  for 
sending  a  part  of  you  out  of  the  country.  ")  Now,  mark  well 
what  I  am  going  to  say :  it  is  the  taxes  and  the  misappli" 
cation  of  the  tithes,  that  have  produced  this  terrible 
change.  Fifty  years  ago ;  nay,  only  forty  years  ago,  the 
whole  of  the  taxes  for  a  year,  amounted  to  fifteen  millions 
of  pounds.  They  now  amount  to  upwards  of  sixty  miU 
lions  of  pounds.  These  taxes  take  away  so  much  from  the 
owners  and  occupiers  of  land  and  houses,  and  from  all  per- 
sons carrying  on  trade,  manufactures,  or  commerce,  that 
they  have  not  enough  left  to  pay  the  working  people  a  suffi- 
ciency of  wages.  Then  again,  when  a  working  man  gets  his 
wao-es,  he  has  to  pay,  on  his  beer,  his  hops,  his  malt,  his 
soap,  his  candles,  his  tobacco,  his  tea,  his  sugar,  on  the 
calico  that  he  wears  in  his  shirt,  and  that  his  wife  wears  in 
her  gown,  twice  as  much,  on  an  average,  as  he  would  have 
to  pay  for  them  if  it  were  not  for  these  taxes.  For  in- 
stance, the  sugar  which  costs  seven-pence  a  pound,  he 
would  have  for  three-pence ;  the  tea  which  costs  him  ^\q 
shillings  a  pound,  he  would  have  for  eighteen-pence,  if  not 


1st  March,  183U  197 

for  a  shilling.     This  is  the  cause  of  the  great  change  in  the 
circumstances  of  the  labouring  people  of  England,  and  the 
country  people  have  been  further  greatly  injured  by  that 
misapplication  of  the  tithes  of  which  I  shall  speak  more  by- 
and-by,  and  which  is  one  of  the  crying  sins  of  this  nation. 
Now,  the  working  people,  being  thus  borne  down  by  the 
taxes  and  misapplication  of  the  tithes ;  being,  in  the  first 
place,  deprived  of  the  wages  which  they  would  receive  if  it 
were  not  for  the  taxes  laid  upon  their  employers ;  and  hav- 
ing, in  the  next  place,  to  give  one  half  of  the  wages  which 
they  get  to  the  tax-gatherer,  in  one  shape  or  another ;  being 
thus  borne  down,  I  say,  by  the  taxes  and  the  tithes,  they 
are  reduced  to  this  choice ;  to  lie  down  and  die  with  star- 
vation, or  to  obtain  something  out  of  the  poor-rates.     By 
degrees,  they  have  been  stripped  of  the  nice  little  furniture 
of  their  houses ;  by  degrees,  they  have  been  brought  down 
to  have  their  bodies  covered  with  miserable  rags ;  by  de- 
grees,  they  have  been  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  living 
upon  miserable   potatoes,  instead  of  having    their   bellies 
filled  with  bread  and  with  meat  as  their  forefathers  had  ; 
by  degrees,  they  have  been  brought  down  to  this  low  and 
wretched  state  3  that,  according  to  the  reports  laid  before 
Parliament,  the  honest  labouring  man  is  allowed  less  to  live 
on  than  is  allowed  to  a  felon  in  the  jails ;  but  still,  they  must' 
live,  or  else  there  would  be  nobody  to  do  the  w^ork ;  and 
without  their   work,  the  land  is  worth  nothing.     Scheme 
after  scheme  has  been  tried,  to  make  them  lire  upon  less 
and  less ;  till,  at  last,  the  bow  has  been  strained  so  tightly, 
that  there  was  danger  of  its  breaking.     It  never  seems  to 
have  occurred  to  those  who  have  had  the  making  of  the 
laws,  that  it  w^ould  be  better  to  take  off  the  taxes,  and  to 
make  a  new  application  of  the  tithes.     This  never  seems  to 
have  come  into  their  heads.     They  have  seen  the  poor  in- 
crease, in  proportion  as  the  taxes  increased ;  and  yet  they 


198  Two-penny  Trash; 

never  seem  to  have  thought,  that,  to  reduce  the  taxes,  was 
the  natural  and  effectual  way  of  putting  a  stop  to  the  in- 
creasing poverty.  On  the  contrary,  they  have  gone  on  in- 
creasing the  taxes  ;  they  have  gone  on  increasing  the  number 
of  the  soldiers  and  sailors,  though  in  time  of  profound  peace; 
of  the  placemen,  the  pensioners,  the  sinecure  people  ;  the 
half-pay  people;  they  have  increased  these  to  numbers  pro- 
digious; they  seem  to  grudge  them  nothing;  while  the  amount 
of  the  poor-rates  seems  to  alarm  them  beyond  all  description: 
Last  spring,  my  labourers  at  ^arn-EIm  in  Surrey,  having 
heard  of  this  project  for  sending  a  part  of  the  working  people 
out  of  the  country,  presented  an  humble  petition  to  the  two 
Houses  of  Parliament  upon  the  subject,  a  copy  of  which  pe- 
tition I  here  insert,  begging  you  to  read  it  with  the  greatest 
attention.  It  was  presented  to  the  House  of  Commons  by 
Mr.  Pallmer,  the  membe^  for  the  county  of  Surrey:  that 
which  was  their  case,  is  the  case  of  you  all :  therefore,  read 
this  petition  with  attention. 

To  the  Honourable  the   Commons  of  the  United  Kingdom  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  in  Parliament  assembled. 

The  petition  of  the  undersigned  Labourers  at  Barn-Elm  Farm, 
in  the  parish  of  Barnes,  in  the  county  of  Surrey, 

Most  humbly  showeth ; 

That  your  petitioners  have  perceived  that  there  is  a  proposition 
before  your  honourable  House,  for  mortgaging  the  poor-rates,  and 
for  imposing  taxes,  in  order  to  raise  money  for  the  purpose  of  send- 
ing a  part  of  the  working  people  out  of  the  country,  upon  the 
ground,  that,  owing  to  their  excessive  numbers,  they  cause  a  charge 
upon  the  land  so  great  as  to  threaten  to  swallow  up  the  whole  of 
the  rents. 

That  your  petitioners  have  heard,  and  they  believe,  that,  out  of 
about  eleven  thousand  parishes,  in  England  and  Wales,  there  are 
one  thousand  and  four,  the  population  of  which  is,  on  an  average, 
under  a  hundred  souls  to  a  parish  ;  and  that  they  know,  that  you 
have,  in  the  evidence  given  before  your  committees,  the  state- 
ments of  experienced  farmers,  that  there  are  not  too  many  work- 
people to  cultivate  the  land  properly,  but  that  the  taxes  take  from 
the  farmer  the  means  of  giving  the  work-people  wages  sufficient 
for  their  proper  maintenance  ;  and  that  from  this  cause  the  land 
is  not  cultivated  so  well  as  it  used  to  be,  and  does  not  yield  so  much 
0s  it  used  to  yield,  while  the  labourers  are  compelled  to  resort  to 
parish  relief. 


1st  March,  1831.  199 

That,  deducting  the  amount  of  the  county-rates,  militia-charges, 
highway-rates,  church-rates,  and  the  law  expenses,  the  poor-rates, 
that  is  to  say,  the  money  actually  paid  in  the  way  of  relief  to  tha 
poor,  does  not,  especially  if  we  deduct  the  salaries  paid  to  hired 
overseers,  amount  to  six  millions  of  pounds  in  the  year  ;  while  the 
other  taxes,  imposed  by  the  Parliament  and  collected  by  the 
Government,  amount  to  about  sixty  millions  a  year;  and  that, 
therefore,  your  petitioners  cannot  but  think  it  strange,  that  your 
honourable  House  should  be  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  seeing  the 
rents  absorbed  by  these  six  millions,  while  you  appear  to  be  under 
no  apprehension  at  all  of  those  rents  being  absorbed  by  the  sixty 
millions^  especially  as  they  cannot  for  the  life  of  them  imagine  how 
it  is  that  your  honourable  House  can  fad  to  perceive,  that  it  is  th© 
burden  of  the  sixty  millions,  which  is  the  real  and  evident  cause 
of  the  necessity  of  raising  the  six  millions  ;  day-light  not  being 
more  evident  than  the  fact,  that  it  is  the  enormous  taxes  which 
disable  the  farmer  and  trader  and  manufacturer  to  pay  sufficient 
wages  to  his  work-people. 

That  your  petitioners  have  been  told,  that  of  late  years,  one  mil- 
lion and  six  hundred  thousand  poiyids,  or  thereabouts,  have  been 
voted  by  your  honourable  House,  out  of  the  taxes,  for  the  relief  of 
the  poor  clergy  of  the  church  of  England  ;  that  they  have  just  seea 
millions  upon  millions  voted  by  you  for  the  support  of  half-pay 
people  and  their  widows  and  children  ;  that  they  have  been  told, 
that  there  are  numberless  women  and  children  as  well  as  men, 
maintained  as  pensioners  and  sinecurists ;  that  there  are  many  of 
these  men  (who  have  no  pretence  to  have  rendered  any  service  to 
the  country),  each  of  whom  receives  more,  every  year,  than  would 
be  sufficient  to  maintain  two  or  three  hundred  labourers  and  their 
families ;  and  that,  while  all  these  are  all  supported  in  part  on  the 
fruit  of  our  labour,  while  all  these,  who  do  not  work  at  all,  have 
our  dinners,  in  fact,  handed  over  to  them  by  the  acts  of  your 
honourable  House,  we  cannot  very  patiently  hear  of  projects  for 
sending  us  out  of  our  native  land,  on  the  ground  that  we  threatea 
to  swallow  up  the  whole  of  the  rental. 

That  your  petitioners  have  recently  observed,  that  many  great 
sums  of  the  money,  part  of  which  we  pay,  have  been  voted  to  be  givea 
to  persons  who  render  no  services  to  the  country  ;  some  of  whicli 
sums  we  will  mention  here  ;  that  the  sum  of  94,900/.  has  been 
voted  for  disbanded  foreign  officers,  their  widows  and  children^ 
that  your  petitioners  know,  that  ever  since  the  peace,  this  charge 
has  been  annually  made;  that  it  has  been  on  an  average,  110,000/. 
a  year,  and  that,  of  course,  this  band  of  foreigners  have  actually 
taken  away  out  of  England,  since  the  peace,  one  million  and  seven 
hundred  thousand  pounds,  partly  taken  from  the  fruit  of  our 
labour;  and  if  our  dinners  were  actually  taken  from  our  tables 
and  carried  over  to  Hanover,  the  process  could  not  be  to  our 
eyes  more  visible  than  it  now  is ;  and  we  are  astonished  that  those 
who  fear  that  we,  who  make  the  land  bring  forth  crops,  and  who 
make  the  clothing  and  the  houses,  shall  swallow  up  the  rental, 
appear  to  think  nothing  at  all  of  the  swallo wings  of  these  Hano- 


200  Two-penny  Trash; 

verian  men,  women,  and  children,  who  may  continue   thus  to 
swallow  for  half  a  century  to  come. 

That  the  advocates  of  the  project  for  sending  us  out  of  our  coun- 
try to  the  rocks  and  snows  of  Nova  Scotia,  and  the  swamps  and 
Tvilds  of  Canada,  have  insisted  on  the  necessity  of  checking  mar^ 
riages  amongst  us,  in  order  to  cause  a  decrease  in  our  numbers  j 
that,  however,  while  this  is  insisted  on  in  your  honourable  House, 
•we  perceive  a  part  of  our  own  earnings  voted  away  to  encourage 
marriage  amongst  those  who  do  no  work,  and  who  live  at  our  ex- 
pense ;  that  145,267/.  has  just  been  voted  as  the  year's  pensions  for 
vndows  of  officers  of  the  army ;  and  that  your  petitioners  cannot 
but  know,  that  while  this  is  the  case,  few  officers  will  die  without 
leaving  widows,  especially  as  the  children  too  are  pensioned  until 
of  a  certain  age;  that  herein  is  a  high  premium  given  for  mar- 
riage, and  for  the  increase  of  the  numbers  of  those  who  do  not 
"work  ;  that  for  this  purpose  more  than  two  millions  of  pounds  sterling 
have  been  voted  since  the  peace,  out  of  those  taxes  more  than  the 
due  share  of  which  your  petitioners  hare  had  to  pay;  that  to  all  ap- 
pearance, their  children's  children  will  have  to  pay  in  a  similar  man- 
ner for  the  encouragement  and  support  of  similar  idlers  ;  and  that  to 
your  petitioners  it  does  seem  most  wonderful,  that  there  should  be 
persons  to  fear  that  we,  the  labourers,  shall,  on  account  of  our  num- 
bers, swallow  up  the  rental,  while  they  actually  vote  away  our  food 
and  raiment  to  increase  the  numbers  of  those  who  never  have  pro- 
duced and  never  will  produce  any  thing  useful  to  man. 

But  that,  as  appertaining  to  this  matter  of  check  marriages  and 
the  ki'eeding  of  children^  the  vote,  recently  passed,  of  20,986/.  for 
the  year,  for  the  Royal  Military  Asylum,  is  worthy  of  particular 
attention  ;  that  this  Asylum  is  a  place  for  bringing  up  the  children 
of  soldiers :  that  soldiers  are  thus  encouraged  and  invited  to  marry, 
or,  at  least,  to  have  children;  that  while  our  marrying  and  the 
children  proceeding  from  us  are  regarded  as  evils,  we  are  compelled 
to  pay  taxes  for  encouraging  soldiers  to  marry,  and  for  the  support 
and  education  of  their  children  ;  and  that  while  we  are  compelled, 
out  of  the  fruit  of  our  hard  work,  to  pay  for  the  good  lodging, 
clothing,  and  feeding  of  the  children  of  soldiers,  our  own  poor 
children  are,  in  consequence  of  the  taxes,  clad  in  rags,  half-starved, 
and  insulted  with  the  degrading  name  of  paupers;  that,  since  the 
peace,  half  a  million  of  pounds  sterling  have  been  voted  out  of  the 
taxes  for  this  purpose  ;  that,  as  far  as  your  petitioners  have  learned, 
none  of  your  honourable  members  have  ever  expressed  their  fear 
that  this  description  of  persons  would  assist  to  swallow  up  the 
rental ;  and  that  they  do  not  now  learn,  that  there  is  on  foot  any 
project  for  sending  out  of  the  country  these  costly  children  of 
soldiers. 

That  your  petitioners  know  that  more  than  one-half  of  the 
■whole  of  their  wages  is  taken  from  them  by  the  taxes  ;  that  these 
taxes  go  chiefly  into  the  hands  of  idlers  ;  that  your  petitioners  are 
the  bees,  and  that  the  tax-receivers  are  the  drones  ;  and  they  know, 
further,  that  while  there  is  a  project  for  sending  ihe^  bees  out  of 
the  country,  no  one  proposes  to  send  away  the  drones  ;  but  that 


1st  March,  1831.  <         201 

your  petitioners  hope  to  see  the  clay  when  the  checking  of  the  in- 
crease of  the  drones,  and  not  of  the  bees,  will  be  the  object  of  au 
English  Parliament. 

That,  in  consequence  of  taxes,  your  petitioners  pay  sixpence  for 
a  pot  of  worse  beer  than  they  could  make  for  one  penny ;  that 
they  pay  ten  shillings  for  a  pair  of  shoes  that  they  could  have  for 
five  shillings  ;  that  they  pay  seven-pence  for  a  pound  of  soap  or 
candles  that  they  could  have  for  three-pence  ;  that  they  pay 
seven-pence  for  a  pound  of  sugar  that  they  could  have  for  three- 
pence ;  that  they  pay  six  shillings  for  a  pound  of  tea  that  they 
could  have  for  two  shillings  ;  that  they  pay  double  for  their  bread 
and  meat,  of  what  they  would  have  to  pay,  if  there  were  no  idlers 
to  be  kept  out  of  the  taxes  ;  that,  therefore,  it  is  the  taxes  that 
make  their  wages  insufficient  for  their  support,  and  that  compel 
them  to  apply  for  aid  to  the  poor-rates ;  that  knowing  these  things, 
they  feel  indignant  at  hearing  themselves  described  as  paupers, 
while  so  many  thousands  of  idlers,  for  whose  support  they  pay 
taxes,  are  called  Noble  Lords  and  Ladies,  Honourable  Gentlemen^ 
Masters,  and  Misses;  that  they  feel  indignant  at  hearing  them- 
selves described  as  a  nuisance  to  be  gotten  rid  of,  while  the  idlers 
who  live  upon  their  earnings  are  upheld,  caressed,  and  cherished, 
as  if  they  were  the  sole  support  of  the  country. 

That  your  petitioners  know  that,  according  to  the  holy  Scrip- 
tures, even  the  ox  is  not  to  be  muzzled  as  he  treadeth  out  the  corn  ; 
that  God  has  slid  that  the  labourer  is  worthy  of  his  hire ;  that  the 
poor  shall  not  be  oppressed  ;  that  they  shall  be  fed  out  of  the 
abundance  of  the  land. 

That  according  to  the  laws  of  the  Christian  church  in  England, 
according  to  the  canon  law,  according  to  the  statute  law,  the  poor 
of  every  parish  were  to  be  relieved  out  of  the  tithes ;  that  they 
ought  to  be  relieved  now;  that,  at  any  rate,  the  lavTs  of  England 
say,  that  no  one  shall  perish  from  want  ;  that,  if  unable  to  work, 
or  to  obtain  work,  a  sufficiency  of  food  and  raiment  and  other 
necessaries  of  life  shall  be  furnished  to  the  indigent  person  by  the 
parish  ;  and  that,  therefore,  your  petitioners  have,  in  case  of  need, 
as  clear  and  good  a  right  to  parish  relief  as  the  landlord  has  to  the 
rent  of  his  land  ;  and  that,  if  your  honourable  House  choose  to 
continue  to  take  the  sixty  millions  a  year  in  taxes  ;  if  you  choose 
to  cause  the  working  people  to  be  made  poor  in  this  way  ;  if  you 
choose  to  reduce  us  in  this  manner  to  appeal  to  the  parish-rates  to 
support  our  lives  ;  if  you  choose  to  continue  to  compel  us  to  give 
more  than  the  half  of  our  wages  to  the  tax-gatherers  ;  if  this  be 
your  decision,  we  hope  that  you  will  not  blame  us  for  pressing  ou 
the  rates  and  the  rental. 

That  your  petitioners  are  constantly  liable  to  be  called  out  to 
serve  in  the  militia;  that  they  are  compelled  to  give  in  their 
names  to  the  parish  constable  in  order  that  they  may  be  called  out 
whenever  the  Government  may  choose  ;  that  they  are  thus  liable 
to  lose  their  time  in  the  prime  of  life;  to  quit  their  homes,  their 
aged  parents,  their  wives,  and  helpless  children  ;  and  to  submit 
to  military  command,  military  law,  military  punishmeot,  and,  if 

k5 


202  Two-penny  Trash; 

need  be,  loss  of  limb  or  loss  of  life  in  fighting ;  that  they  are  thus 
compelled  to  serve  and  to  suffer  on  the  ground  that  it  is  necessary 
either  to  the  defence  of  the  country  against  foreign  foes,  or  to  the 
security  of  property  against  internal  commotion  ;  but  that  w,e 
possess  no  property  but  in  our  labour,  which  no  foe,  foreign  or 
domestic,  can  take  from  us;  and  that,  if  we  be  to  be  regarded  as 
having  no  right  to  a  maintenance  out  of  the  laud  in  exchange  for 
our  labour,  if  we  be  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  nuisance  to  be  gotten 
rid  of,  is  it  just,  we  would  ask,  that  we  should  be  torn  from  our 
homes,  and  compelled  to  waste  the  prime  of  our  lives,  subjected 
to  military  command  and  military  punishment,.for  the  purpose  of 
defending  that  land  ? 

That,  about  twelve  years  ago,  an  Act  was  passed  by  your 
honourable  House  changing  the  mode  of  voting  in  parish  vestries, 
and  another  Act,  about  eleven  years  ago,  establishing  select  ves- 
tries ;  that,,  by  these  two  Acts,  your  petitioners  were  deprived  of 
a  great  part  of  their  rights  ;  that,  by  the  latter  Act,  hired  overseerSy 
strangers  to  the  parish,  were  introduced  with  salaries,  to  be  paid 
out  of  the  rates  destined  for  our  relief ;  that  these  overseers  are 
gencFally  paid  inuch  in  proportion  as  they  give  little  in  relief; 
that  hence  have  come  oppressions  and  insults  on  us  without  end  ; 
that,  in  some  cases,  the  labourers  wanting  relief  have  been  com- 
pelled to  draw  carts  and  wagons  like  beasts  of  burden  ;  in  others 
they  have  been  compelled  to  carry  large  stones  backwards  and 
forwards  in  a  field,  merely  to  give  them  pain  and  to  degrade  them ; 
in  others  they  have  been  shut  up  in  the  parish-pounds,  and,  in 
short,  they  have  been  fed  and  treated  far  worse  than  the  dogs  of 
those  who  live  in  luxury  on  those  taxes,  a  large  part  of  which  are 
wrung  from  the  sweat  of  your  petitioners;  and  that  at  last,  we 
have  seen  a  bill  passed  by  your  honourable  House,  authorising 
these  overseers  to  dispose  of  our  dead  bodies  for  the  purpose  of 
being  cut  up  by  the  surgeons,  thereby  inflicting  on  poverty  the 
ignominy  due  to  the  murderer. 

That  while  we  know  that  we  have  a  clear  right  to  relief,  in 
case  of  need  we  wish  not  to  be  compelled  to  apply  for  that  relief; 
we  desire  not  to  hear  the  degrading  name  of  pauper;  we  wish  to 
keep  our  wages  for  our  own  use,  and  not  to  have  them  taken  away 
to  be  given  to  idlers  ;  we  wish  to  be  well  fed  and  clad,  and  to  carry 
our  heads  erect,  as  was  the  case  with  our  happy  forefathers ;  we 
are  resolved,  at  any  rate,  not  to  be  treated  like  beasts  of  burden, 
and  not  to  be  driven  from  our  country;  and,  therefore,  we  pray 
that  your  honourable  House  will  repeal  the  two  Acts  above-men- 
tioned; that  you  will  take  from  our  shoulders  and  from  those  of  our 
employers,  the  grievous  burden  of  taxes  ;  and  that  you  will  be 
pleased  to  begin  forthwith  by  relieving  us  from  the  taxes  on  malt, 
hops,  leather,  soap  and  candles. 

And  your  petitioners  will  ever  pray. 

Now,  my  friends,  this  is  your  case,  and  I  advise  you  to 
draw  up  petitions  in  the  same  or  similar  words,  and  to  give 


1st  March,  1831.  203 

them  to  the  members  of  your  different  counties  to  be  pre- 
sented to  the  Parliament.  Having  placed  all  these  matters 
clearly  before  you,  let  me  next  describe  to  you  the  nature 
of  the  bill  or  law  which  it  is  now  proposed  to  pass,  in 
order  to  get  you  to  go  out  of  the  country.  When  I  have 
done  that.  I  shall  explain  to  you  the  perfect  right  that  you 
have  to  remain  here,  and  to  have  a  good  living  here,  in  your 
native  country ;  provided  you  honestly  labour,  you  have  as 
much  right  to  this  as  any  lord  or  other  man  has  to  his  es- 
tate ;  and  that  in  case  of  your  inability  to  labour  suffi- 
ciently for  the  ♦maintenance  of  your  family,  you  have  as 
much  right  to  relief  out  of  the  poor-rates  as  any  man  has  to 
the  rent  of  his  estate  or  profits  of  his  trade  or  calling.  Then 
I  shall  conclude  with  describing  to  you  the  natural  conse- 
quences which  will  arise  to  you,  if  you  consent  to  be  sent 
away  out  of  your  country ;  and  here  I  shall  speak  of  the 
different  countries  to  which  it  may  be  intended  to  send  you. 
These  three  subjects,  then,  I  have  to  request  you  to  hear 
me  remark  on  with  all  the  attention  of  which  you  are  mas- 
ters; for,  on  your  due  attention  to  them  may  depend  your 
future  happiness  or  misery. 

FiRst,  what  is  the  nature  of  the  bill  or  law  intended  to 
get  you  out  of  the  country  of  your  birth  ?  It  is,  that  a  part 
of  you  shall  be  induced  to  give  your  assent  to  be  sent  away  ; 
to  be  put  on  board  of  ships ;  to  be  carried  to  a  foreign  land  ; 
and  that,  after  being  landed  in  that  foreign  land,  if  you 
ever  return  to  England  again,  you  are  to  be  cut  off  from 
all  relief  from  the  poor-rates;  and,  of  course,  are  to  be 
left  to  starve  on  the  highway  or  under  the  hedges  if  you 
should  be  unable  to  provide  for  yourselves ;  or  if  you 
should  not  be  able  to  find  any  t)ne  willing  to  relieve 
you  voluntarily  out  of  his  own  purse.  So  that  you  see  the 
dreadful  penalty,  in  case  you  return ;  you  see  that,  if  you 
be  induced  to  go,  you  abandon  England  and  parents  and 


204  Two-PENNT  Trash  5 

brethren  and  friends,  for  ever !  In  order  to  raise  the  money 
to  hire  the  ships,  to  put  you  on  board  of  them,  and  to  land 
you  in  those  foreign  parts  of  which  I  shall  have  to  speak 
more  particularly  by-and-by,  it  is  proposed  to  MORT- 
GAGE THE  POOR-RATES  !  That  is  to  say,  to 'enable 
the  parish-officers  to  borrow  money  of  some  of  the  rich  peo- 
ple who  receive  vast  sums  out  of  the  taxes.  It  is  intended 
to  authorize  the  parish-officers  to  borrow  money  of  these  peo- 
ple, and  to  pay  the  interest  and  principal  out  of  the  poor- 
rates.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  proposed  to  put  in  pawn  the 
Tvhole  of  the  land  and  houses  of  England,  in  order  to  raise 
money  to  hire  ships  to  carry  the  working  people  out  of  the 
country ;  yes,  my  friends,  to  carry  away  those  without  whose 
labour  the  houses  could  not  be  kept  up  for  ten  years,  and 
without  whose  labour  the  land  is  worth  not  a  straw.  Atid 
observe,  my  good  friends,  while  the  Government  is  making 
this  proposition,  it  makes  no  proposition  for  sending  away 
one  single  soul  of  those  who  live  upon  the  taxes  and  the 
tithes,  and  whose  monstrous  haviijgs  it  is  that  are  the  cause 
of  these  very  poor-rates  which  the  Government  proposes  to 
send  you  away  in  order  to  diminish. 

The  SECOND  great  point  to  which  I  have  to  beg  your  at- 
tention is  this,  that  you  have  a  right  to  live  in  England; 
that,  if  you  labour  honestly,  you  have  a  right  to  have,  in 
exchange  for  your  labour,  a  sufficiency  out  of  the  produce  of 
the  earth,  to  maintain  yourself  and  family  well;  and,  if  you 
be  unable  to  labour,  or,  if  you  cannot  obtain  labour,  you 
have  a  right  to  a  maintenance  out  of  the  produce  of  the  land ; 
and  that  these  rights  are  as  complete  in  you  as  the  right 
which  the  land-owner  has  to  the  use  of  his  land.  Be- 
fore men  entered  into  civil  society,  the  earth  and  all  upon 
the  earth,  belonged  to  them  all  in  common.  Every  one  took, 
according  to  his  strength  or  his  skill,  that  which  he  needed. 
When  men  entered  into  civil  society,  and  subjected  them- 


\ 


% 


1st  March,  1831.  205 

selves  to  laws,  then  property  arose,  and  the  laws  protected 
the  weak  against  the  strong  ;  but  were  never  intended  to 
favour  the  strong  at  the  expense  of  the  weak.  Certain 
portions  of  the  land  became  the  property  of  certain  persons  ; 
but  still  the  right  of  enjoying  life  was  not  taken  from  any  body: 
the  right  of  starving  thousands  never  was  given  to  scores  of 
men.  Men  entered  into  society  to  better  their  lot,  and  not  to 
make  it  worse,  not  to  put  it  into  the  power  of  the  few  to  starve 
the  many,  or  to  make  them  lead  miserable  lives.  Accordingly, 
as  long  as  England  consisted  of  lords  and  vassals ;  that  is  to 
say,  of  great  proprietors  of  the  land,  and  of  people  renting  or 
working  under  them,  the  lords  naturally  took  care  that  the  vas- 
sals should  not  suffer  from  want.  -When  Christianity  was  intro- 
duced into  England,  a  new  mode  of  taking  care  of  the  work- 
ing people  was  established.  A  tenth  part  of  the  produce  of 
the  earth,  together  with  large  parcels  of  land,  w^as  given  to 
the  clergy.  But  not  for  them  to  consume  themselves ;  but 
it  was  given  in  trust  to  them  for  these  purposes :  JiJ^st,  for 
the  relief  of  the  poor,  the  aged,  the  infirm,  the  widow,  and 
the  orphan ;  second,  for  the  building  and  repairing  of  the 
churches,  and  furnishing  every- thing  necessary  for  baptisms, 
burials,  and  the  other  rites  and  ceremonies  of  the  church ; 
third,  to  provide  the  priest  of  the  parish  with  a  maintenance 
for  himself  and  his  relations,  if  he  had  any,  and  for  the  pur- 
pose of  keeping  hospitality  and  relieving  strangers  within  his 
gates.  This  was  the  law  and  this  the  practice  in  happy 
England  for  nine  hundred  years.  At  last,  when  the  Catholic 
religion,  which  had  raised  all  our  churches  and  cathedrals, 
and  under  which  our  fathers  had  lived  so  happy,  and  had 
seen  their  country  so  great ;  w- hen  this  religion  was  destroyed 
and  the  present  established  in  its  stead,  a  large  part  of  the 
church  lands  and  other  revenues  w^as  taken  by  the  nobility, 
and  the  rest  given  to  parsons,  who,  being  allowed  to  marry, 
took  the  whole  of  the  tithes  to  themselves,  leaving  the  neces- 


206  Two-penny  Trash; 

sitous  poor  to  starve,  or  to  be  relieved  by  mere  casual  cha- 
rity. Our  fathers  rose  in  rebellion  against  this  alteration. 
Long  and  bloody  was  the  strife,  till,  at  last,  a  law  was  made 
to  provide  for  the  indigent  poor  (some  of  whom  there  must 
be  in  all  countries),  by  an  assessment  ort  the  houses  and  the 
land ;  and  a  law  was  also  made  to  compel  the  people,  instead 
of  the  parsons,  to  build  and  repair  and  provide  for  the 
churches.  Hence,  my  friends,  arose  the  poor-rates  and  the 
church-rates  ;  and  hence  arose  the  hateful  and  degrading 
name  of  pauper,  the  sound  of  which  our  free  and  happy 
fathers  never  heard.  They,  whose  ashes  swell  up  the  earth 
in  the  church-yards,  had  the  happiness  to  die  before  the 
name  oi pauper  was  heard  in  their  countr3\ 

Such  is  the  history  of  the  poor-laws,  from  which  you 
will  clearly  see  that  the  relief  which  they  give  is  your  right, 
in  case  of  necessity,  in  exchange  for  that  which  was   taken 
from  you  by  the  above-mentioned  transfer  of  the  revenues  of 
the  church.     And  it  must  also  be  tlear  to  you,  that   your 
rights  to  relief  out  of  the  poor- rates  is  as  perfect  as  that  of 
any  man  to  the  fruits  of  his  estate.     All  the  houses  and  all 
the  land  in  England  and  Wales  are  charged  with  the  poor- 
rates,  as  much  as  any  m.an's  estate  can  be  charged  with  a 
mortgage  or  an  annuity.     Nay,  the  very  measure  which  this 
imbecile  ministry  now  propose,  and  which  I  have  described 
to  you  above,  clearly  shows,   that  a  part  of  every  real 
estate  belongs  to  the  poor  ;  for  they  propose  to  mortgage 
all  those  estates  ;   and  for  what,  and   for  whom  ?     Why, 
for  your  use  ;  for  you!  They  propose  to  borrow  money  on  all 
the  land  and  houses  in  England,  in  order  to  furnish  the  means 
of  your  going  to  live  in  some  other  country.     Let  them  not, 
after  this,  deny  that  you  have  a  lien  upon  the  land.     Let 
them  not,  after  this,  deny  that  you  are  part  proprietors  of 
the  houses  and  the  land.     It  is,  therefore,  a  right,  an  im- 
prescriptible and  indefeasible  right  that  you  have,  in  case  of 


1st  March,  1831.  207 

necessity,  to  a  maintenance  out  of  the  poor-rates.  It  is  not 
alms  that  is  given  you  out  of  these  rates ;  it  is  not  as  beg- 
gars that  you  apply  for  relief  in  place  of  need.  It  is  as  men 
having  a  right  to  what  you  ask  for,  and  as  having  legal  re- 
dress if  your  application  be  refused.     And  as  to  the  amount  j 

I- 

if  you  require  much,  let  those  who  manage  the  affairs  of  the 
country,  so  manage  them  as  for  you  to  require  less.  They 
complain,  there  are  men  insolent  enough  to  complain,  that 
you  make  this  great  demand  in  consequence  of  your  '^  early 
marriages,''  and  your  having  so  many  children.  They  for- 
get, that  when  you  are  married,  you  join  the  parson  and  the 
clerk  in  prayer  that  your  wives  may  bring  forth  numerous 
children,  and  that  the  parson  reads  to  you  that  beautiful 
passage  of  the  Scripture^  which  says  that  *'  little  children 
"  are  as  arrows  in  the  hands  of  the  giant,  and  that  blessed 
"  is  the  man  that  hath  his  quiver yw/Z  ofthemJ^  They  for- 
get this ;  they  forget,  too,  that  youth  and  not  age  is  the  season 
for  love  and  for  marriage  ;  and  that  it  is  to  treat  you  as  brutes, 
as  mere  brute  beasts,  to  prescribe  to  you  when  you  shall  love 
or  when  you  shall  marry.  To  indulge  this  passion,  to  perform 
this  act,  is  amongst  the  rights  of  nature  herself;  and  the 
man,-  let  him  be  who  he  may,  who  would  attempt  to  take 
away  or  attempt  to  restrain  you  in  the  enjoyment  of  these 
rights,  is  amongst  the  blackest  and  most  hated  of  tyrants. 

The  THIRD  great  point  or  matter  on  which  I  wish  to  fix 
your  attention,  is,  the  country,  or  countries,  to  which  it  may 
probably  be  intended  to  send  you,  and  the  dangers  which  will 
attend  you,  if  you  suffer  yourselves  to  be  sent  away.  In  the 
first  place,  you  quit  parents,  brethren,  and  friends,  jfor  ever; 
you  will  observe  that  it  is  intended  to  be  for  ever,  if,  as  I 
understand  the  proposition,  you  are  not  to  return  without  being 
exposed  to  starvation.  Even  if  you  be  a  single  man,  a  sea 
voyage  and  the  necessary  hard  treatment  on  board  of  ship, 
are  not  things  to  be  thought  little  of.     If  you  have  wife  and 


208  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

children,  or  children  without  wife,  or  wife  without  children, 
the  hardship  is  still  greater.  I,  who  have  crossed  the  Atlan- 
tic six  times,  know  well  what  poor  people  suffer  in  sea  voy- 
ages. The  moment  you  step  your  foot  on  board  of  ship, 
the  captain  of  that  ship  is  your  master ;  he  can  imprison 
you  or  corporally  punish  you,  if  he  chooses.  At  any  rate^ 
you  have  to  live  upon  the  allowance  that  he  allots  you, 
and  it  is  not  to  be  supposed,  that  men  who  are  called  pau^ 
pers  before  they  go  away,  will  be  treated  with  any  extraor- 
dinary degree  of  humanity  and  gentleness.  In  spite  of  all 
this,  however,  if  you  could  have  security  for  the  Government 
causing  you  to  be  carried  to  the  UNITED  STATES  OF 
AMERICA  (pray  mark  the  name  of  the  country;  pray  re- 
member it  well);  if  the  Government  would  cause  you  to  be 
taken  there  to  live  under  that  free  government,  where  there 
are  neither  taxes  nor  tithes;  where  men  earn  a  dollar 
(that  is  to  say,  four  and  sixpence)  a  day  ;  where  there  is  no 
tax  on  malt,  on  hops,  on  sugar,  on  tea,  on  candles,  on  to- 
bacco ;  where  there  are  neither  paupers  nor  beggars;  where 
there  are  no  aristocrats  to  tread  men  under  foot  5  where  there 
are  no  parsons  and  no  priests,  except  such  as  men  choose  to 
pay  of  their  own  accord  ;  if  the  Government  will  have  you 
carried  to  that  country  which  has  a  fine  climate,  fine  fruits, 
corn  and  cattle,  and  where  the  poorest  creature  of  a  la- 
bouring man  eats  meat  if  he  chooses  it  four  times  a  day; 
if  the  Government  will  have  you  carried  to  that  country 
where  masters  and  mistresses  w^ill  thank  you  to  have  your 
children  put  to  them  at  five  or  six  years  of  age,  to  be  reared 
by  them  until  they  are  twelve  or  fourteen,  are  bound  to 
teach  them  to  read  and  to  write  during  those  years,  and  to 
fit  them  out  with  clothes,  and  to  give  them  each  fifty  pounds 
a-piece  at  the  end  of  the  time  ;  if  the  Government  will  take 
you  to  that  blessed  country  where  every  man  of  twenty-one 
years  of  age  has  a  vote  in  the  choosing  of  members  for  the 


1st  March,  1831.  209 

Houses  of  Assembly ;  if  the  Government  will  send  you  to 
that  country,  then  I  say  GO, 

But,  alas  !  they  appear  to  have  far  other  intentions ;  they 
appear  to  have  Australia  (as  they  call  it) ;  or,  Nova  Scotia, 
New  Brunswick,  or  Canada,  in  their  minds.  Now,  mark  me, 
this  Australia  is  part  of  a  great  wild  country  in  the  South  Seas, 
to  get  to  which,  requires  nine  months  or  twelve  months  of 
sea  passage ;  to  survive-^such  a  voyage  is  quite  enough  for  a 
young  and  stout  man ;  and,  as  to  women  and  children,  how 
are  they  to  survive  it,  crowded  together  in  the  hold  of  a  ship, 
that  ship  knocked  about  by  storms  and  tempests,  the  ears 
dinned  with  the  rattling  of  the  thunder,  and  the  soul  terrified 
by  the  dreadful  flashes  of  lightning.  Besides,  have  you  not 
read  of  the  dismal  fate  of  the  poor  creatures  who  have  gone 
to  that  country  5  is  not  that  enough  to  make  you  cling  even 
to  your  beggarly  hovels  and  your  potatoes,  rather  than  ex- 
pose wives  and  children  that  you  love  to  sufferings  like 
those?  Australia^  or  Swan  River  as  it  is  sometimes 
called,  or  Botany  Bay,  or  Van  Diemens  Land^  which  are 
all  different  parts  of  the  same  horrid  country.  To  none  of 
those  will  any  man  go  who  is  plainly  told  what  they  are,  and 
who  has  common  sense  left  in  his  mind. 

With  respect  to  Nova  Scotia,  New  Brunswick,  and  Ca« 
nada,  which  all  join  together,  and  a  part  of  which  latter  joina 
on  the  United  States  of  America.  In  my  Emigrant's  Guide, 
speaking  of  these  countries,  in  comparison  with  the  United 
States,  I  have  described  them  thus :  Nova  Scotia,  New 
Brunswick,  and  Canada,  are  the  horns,  the  head,  the  neck, 
the  shins,  and  the  hoofs  of  the  ox,  and  the  United  States  are 
the  ribs,  the  surloin,  the  kidneys,  and  the  rest  of  the  body. 
I  myself,  when  in  the  army,  lived  in  Nova  Scotia  and  New 
Brunswick  eight  years.  They  are  one  great  heap  of  rocks, 
covered  with  fir-trees,  with  here  and  there  a  little  strip  of 
land  capable  of  cultivation,  by  the  sides  of  the  rivers.  What 


210  T\vo-PENNY  Trash; 

these  countries  are  you  may  judge  from  the  following  facts ; 
that  almost  all  the  meat  and  all  the  flour  consumed  in  them,  is 
carried  from  the  United  States  ;  that  green  peas  are  carried 
into  those  countries  from  the  United  States,  and  even  cab- 
bages ;  that,  as  to  fruits,  cherries,  apples,  pears,  all  go  from 
the  United  States,  though  at  a  distance  of  hundreds  of 
miles,  just  as  gooseberries  are  sent  from  Middlesex  and 
Surrey  to  Scotland.  In  short,  the  most  barren,  the  most 
villanous  piece  of  waste  land ;  the  thin  shell  upon  the  top 
of  a  gravel  pit  in  England,  compared  with  the  fat  meadows 
and  the  gardens  in  the  Medway,  or  the  beautiful  valleys  in 
Wiltshire,  is  precisely  what  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Bruns- 
wick are  to  the  United  States  of  America.  A  small  part  of 
Canada  is  rather  better,  when  it  approaches  near  to  tl^e 
United  States ;  but  here  all  the  good  land  has  been  given 
away  long  ago  to  officers  of  the  army  and  parsons  and  other 
persons  in  office,  w^ho  swarm  in  that  country.  And  in  these 
countries,  observe,  there  are  church  parsons  ;  so  that  if  you 

-    go  there,  you  will  not  lose  this  blessing,  at  any  rate. 

In  these  cbuntries,  the  English  governor  is  the  chief  ma- 
gistrate, and  he  is  not  chosen  by  the  people  as  those  in  the 
United  States  are.  This  governor  is  appointed  by  the  Mi- 
nistry in  England.  Then  there  is  an  English  army  there 
under  his  command  ;  so  that  you  have  still  the  same  sort  of 
government  as  if  you  remained  here.  Then,  the  horrible 
climate  ;  the  land  covered  with   snow  seven  months  of  the 

.  year ;  the  danger  of  death  if  any  man  be  lost  in  the  snow  for 
only  ten  minutes.  Thousands  of  deaths  take  place  every 
year  from  people  being  what  is  called  frost-bitten.  I  told  you 
before  that  I  had  to  live  myself  eight  years  in  these  wretched 
Countries,  I  was  in  the  army.  It  was  my  duty  to  mount 
guard.  The  men  going  on  guard  were  wrapped  up  ia 
great  cloth  coats  lined  with  flannel,  their  head  covered  with 
caps  of  the  same  sort,  leaving  only  an  opening  for  the  eyes 


1st  March,  1831.  211 

and  the  nose.  They  used  to  come  out  and  range  themselves 
at  about  fifty  yards  from  the  room  out  of  which  I  went  to 
them;  and  though  they  had  only  just  run  out  of  their  bar- 
rack-rooms, I  have  seen  half  a  dozen  men  at  a  time  with 
their  noses  frost-bitten,  which  you  perceive  the  moment  you 
see  them,  by  their  having  become  white.  The  remedy  is 
instantly  to  rub  with  snow  the  part  affected  ;  but,  very 
frequently,  if  this  be  delayed  only  for  half  an  hour,  morti- 
fication takes  place  ;  and  there  are  thousands  of  men  in  those 
countries  with  their  hands  or  feet  cut  off  in  order  to 
save  their  lives.  But,  my  friends,  rest  not  on  my  word 
alone  for  those  facts.  In  my  Emigrant's  Guide  there  are 
letters  from  John  Watson,  the  son  of  Stephen  Watson  of 
the  village  af  Sedlescomb,  near  Battle,  in  Sussex.  This 
John  Watson  was  sent  out  to  America  at  the  expense  of  the 
parish;  but  he  thought  he  was  going  to  the  United  States 
of  America,  when  he  found  himself  landed  in  that  miserable 
country  New  Brunswick.  He  had  land  given  him  within  a 
few  miles  of  the  spot  where  I  lived  for  the  better  part  of  four 
years.  But  he  found  his  situation  so  wretched  that  he  took 
his  family,  a  wife  and  several  children,  and  dragged  them 
along  through  an  extent  of  country  three  thousand  miles  in 
length  in  order  to  get  out  of  that  country.  He  went  all 
through  Lower  and  Upper  Canada,  from  which  last  he  got 
into  the  United  States  of  America,  and  then,  under  that 
cheap  Government,  and  amidst  that  kind  people,  he  began  to 
labour,  to  thrive,  to  prosper,  and  his  last  letter  tells  his  father 
(whom  I  sao^v  last  October  at  Battle),  that  he,  John  Watson, 
who  was  a  parish  pauper  in  Sussex,  is  now  a  farmer  of  his 
own  farm,  in  the  midst  of  abundance  of  all  sorts,  and  want- 
ing nothing  to  make  him  happy  but  the  presence  of  his  and 
his  wife's  fathers  and  mothers.  These  letters  of  the  Sussex 
emigrants  bespeak  the  character  of  the  labourers  of  England, 
and  ought  to  make  shame  be  painted  upon  the  cheeks  of 


212  Two-penny  Trash; 

those  who  entertain  projects  for  sending  them  away  out  of 
their  country.  If  I  understand  rightly  the  words  of  the  man 
who  has  brought  forward  the  project  for  sending  you  away 
from  your  native  country,  the  rich  fellows  who  have  en- 
grossed the  lands  in  Australia  (as  they  call  it)  have  offered 
to  bear  part  ,of  the  expense  of  sending  you  aw^ay  to  them. 
I  pray  you  mark  well  my  w^ords  here.  Have  offered  to  bear 
part  of  the  expense  of  sending  you  there,  if  YOUR  SER- 
VICES CAN  BE  SECURED  TO  THEM  FOR  A 
LIMITED  TIME  !  That  is  to  say,  if  the  Government 
will  compel  you  to  serve  them  for  a  certain  time ;  or  if  it  can 
persuade  you  to  agree  to  do  it !  Pray  mark  this  well ;  for,  if 
you  be  thus  compelled,  you  are  SLAVES  for  that  length  of 
time ;  and  if  you  thus  agree,  you  are  bondsmen,  and  bonds- 
women, and  bondschildren,  for  that  length  of  time! 

There,  my  friends,  you  now  have  my  account  of  this 
matter  ;  and  you  shall  now  have  my  advice  in  a  few  words. 
Eesolve  to  go  to  no  country  but  the  United  States  of  Ame- 
rica;  and  resolve  not  to  go  even  to  that  country  unless  you 
go  in  an  American  ship  !  Mark  my  words,  you  are  quite 
free  to  refuse  to  leave  your  country  ;  and  I  beseech  you  not 
to  stir  one  inch  till  you  be  certain  that  the  ship  is  an  Ame- 
rican ship,  and  that  she  is  bound  to  the  United  States  of 
America.  Remember  these  words,  write  these  words  down, 
if  you  can  write,  listen  to  no  one  that  gives  you  advice  con- 
trary to  this.  Tell  what  I  now  tell  you  to  all  your  friends 
and  all  your  neighbours  round  about.  If  any  attempt  be 
made  tQ  force  you  away,  that  attempt  is  a  crime  against  the 
laws.  You  have  as  much  right  to  live  in  England  as  the 
lords  and  the  parsons  and  the  squires  have,  and  as  the  king 
himself  has.  If  you  be  refused  parochial  relief  unless  you 
will  go  away,  go  to  a  magistrate.  If  he  will  not  hear  you, 
send  a  petition  to  the  Parliament  to  be  presented  by  Mr. 
Hume  or  Mr.  Sadler.     Stir  not  from  your  homes,  I  ad- 


1st  March,  1831.  213! 

vise  you,  one  inch,  unless  you  be  certain  that  you  are  going 
into  an  American  ship,  and  that  that  ship  is  bound  to  the 
United  States  of  America. 

But,  after  all,  WHY  SHOULD  YOU  GO  ANY 
WHITHER!  This  is  your  native  land ;  I  have  shown  you 
how  complete  your  rights  are  in  this  land ;  if  there  be  too 
many  people  in  it,  let  those  go  who  live  upon  the  fruit  of 
your  labour,  and  who  do  no  work  themselves.  You  have  a 
right  to  live  well  here,  not  only  to  live,  but  to  love,  to  marry, 
and  have  all  human  enjoyments.  Besides,  you  are  in  the 
"way  of  improvement :  you  have  lived  better  this  winter  than 
you  did  the  last :  you  now  get  some  bread  and  some  meat. 
Wait  for  a  further  and  greater  change  in  your  circum- 
stances: quit  not  your  native  land,  after  having  endured  so 
much  and  for  so  long  a  time ;  after  having  lived  upon  pota- 
toes for  so  many  years,  quit  it  not  at  the  moment  when  you 
are  beginning  to  taste  of  bread  and  of  meat. 

Now,  my  friends,  pay  attention,  1  pray  you,  to  all  that  I 
have  said ;  next  to  my  own  happiness  and  that  of  my  own 
kin,  your  happiness  is  nearest  to  my  heart:  I  love  my 
country  as  a  whole  :  I  have  a  due  regard  for  every  class  in 
it :  I  honour  the  king  and  the  laws  :  I  wish  for  the  peace 
and  the  happiness  of  all  ranks  of  men,  and  that  justice  may 
be  done  to  all ;  but  I  am  always  mindful  of  that  promise  of 
God,  "  Blessed  is  he  that  plead eth  the  cause  of  the  poor 
**  and  the  needy,  his  enemies  shall  not  prevail  against  him ; 
^'  I  will  make  all  his  bed  on  the  day  of  his  sickness." 

•  I  am 

Your  Friend, 

WM.  COBBETT. 


It  was  my  intention  to  address  a  letter. to  the  people  of 
Preston  on  the  conduct  of  their  ^'  Cock ;"  but,  the  foregoing 
subject  was  too  important  and  too  captivating  to  leave  me 


214  Two-Penny  Trash;    ' 

room  for  it  this  time.  It  would  have  been  a  shame  to 
curtail  my  matter  on  that  subject  for  the  purpose  of  bestow- 
ing ridicule  on  this  poor  thing.  I  must,  however,  insert  two 
articles  respecting  Iiim,  which  I  have  published  before.  He 
seems  to  be  very  much  afraid  that  the  Honourable  House 
will  swallow  him  up,  as  the  children  do  the  gingerbread 
cocks^and-breeches  ! 


HUNT. 

The  hackerings,the  stammerings,  the  bogglings,  the  blun- 
derings,  and  the  cowerings  down  of  this  famous  Cock  I  should 
Dot  have  noticed^  though  they  have  given  a  shrug  to  the 
shoulders,  and  a  lifting  of  the  hands  and  the  eyes,  of  all 
-those  who  expected  any- thing  from  him;  but  the  following 
paragraph,  which  I  find  in  the  Morning  Herald  of  to-day, 
given  as  the  report  of  a  speech  of  his  made  in  the  House  of 
Commons  last  nio;ht,  has  made  me  determine  to  bestow  a 
few  words  upon  him,  after  inserting  the  paragraph  as  fol- 
lows : 

*'  The  honourable  member  also  presented  a  petition  from  a 
*'  meeting-  at  the  Rotunrla,  Blackfriars,  against  the  prosecution 
'^  instituted  ag-ainst  Mr.  O'Connell.  He  was  convinced  that  pro- 
*^  secutions  of  this  kind  did  not  tend  to  check  the  opinions  against 
•  *'  which  they  were  instituted,  and  unless  the  Government  should 
**  get  a  packed  jury  in  Dublin,  Mr.  O'Connell  would  be  acquitted. 
**  He  could  not  help  adverting  to  an  expression  which  fell  from 
*^  Lord  Althorp  last  night  respecting  civil  war.  He  must, say, 
**  it  was  a  cold-blooded  expression,  and  ought  not  to  have  fallen 
*'  froni  any  member  of  the  Government.  He  disclaimed  all  con- 
**  nexion  with  Messrs.  Carlile,  Taylor,  Jones,  and  COBBETT, 
*'  at  the  Rotunda  meetings.*' 

With  regard  to  his  disclaimer  of  all  connexion  with  me, 
every  one  will  congratulate  me  upon  that,  after  the  exhibi- 
tion which  he  has  made  in  parliament.  No  man  knows 
better  than  himself  that  T  have  never  had  the  smallest  con- 
nexion in  the  world  with  either  Messrs.  Carlile,  Taylor,  or 
Jones,  the  first  of  whom  I  never  saw  but  five  times,  the  lat- 
ter but  once,  and  the  second  never  in  my  life  that  I  know  of. 
But,  the  shaft  at  me  is  merely  venomous  ;  in  the  other  cases 
it  is  base  beyond  description.  I  can  defend  myself.  But 
they,  he  well  knows,  cannot  defend  themselves ;  and  one  of 
them  whom  for  years  he  called  his  friend;  he  knows  to  be 


1st  March,  1831.  215 

shut  up  in  a  prison  under  a  sentence  which  has  made  even 
the  most  intolerant  of  the  people  shudder.  For  myself,  I  • 
would  have  thanked  him  for  thus  dragging  in  neck  and 
heels,  and  apropos  of  nothing,  a  disclaimer  of  me  -,  I  should 
have  interpreted  it  as  an  act  of  justice  due  to  me;  but,  as 
for  them,  it  is  perhaps,  though  that  is  saying  a  great  deal, 
the  foulest  thing  that  ever  escaped  a  pair  of  lips  even  in  that 
house. 

Is  this  the  use  to  which  he  means  to  turn  the  power  which 
the  people  of  Preston  have  put  into  his  hands  ?  Was  it  for 
this  that  the  good  and  sincere  and  generous  people  of  Pres- 
ton sent  him  to  the  parliament  house  ?  I  have  not  room  for 
more  at  present,  except  this,  that  if  the  reporter  have  mis- 
represented him,  these  remarks  do  not  apply  to  his  conduct ; 
but,  let  me  be  understood,  that  a  recantation  with  regard  to 
myself  only,  would  not  diminish,  in  my  eye,  but  rather  aug- 
ment, the  baseness  of  this  unprovoked,  this  uncalled-for,  this 
ferocious  attack,  this  at- once  cowardly  and  ferocious  attack, 
on  three  men,  neither  of  whom  is  in  a  situation  to  defend 
himself  nor  to  call  him  to  account,  and  one  of  whom  is 
doomed  to  sufferings,  the  thought  of  which  w^ould  soften  the 
heart  of  a  tiger.  If  he  shall  oe  able  to  disclaim  the  whole, 
I  shall,  for  the  honour  of  human  nature,  be  happy  to  promul- 
gate the  disclaimer;  if  not,  I  shall  show  him  up  in  thenext 
Two-penny  Trash, 

PRESTON  COCK. 

The  Parliamentary  report,  in  the  Morning  Herald  of 
the  15th  instant,  contains  the  following  passage:  *' RO- 
''  TUNDA  MEETINGS.— Mr.  HUNT,  in  presenting  a 
*^  petition  from  certain  persons  meeting  at  the  Rotunday 
"  said  that  it  complained  of  the  conduct  of  the  judges  on 
*^  the  late  commission..  He  felt  himself  called  upon  to 
*'  observe  that  he  had  been  threatened  and  denounced  by 
"  the  party  to  which  the  petitioners  belonged^  solely  because 
*'  he  had  on  a  previous  occasion  disclaimed  in  that  House 
"  all  connexion  with  them^  or  participation  in  their 
"  views.  So  far,  however,  from  being  intimidated  by 
"  these  threats,  he  now  reiterated  his  former  assertion, 
'*  and  shoifld  the  House  not  protect  him,  he  knew  very 
"  well  how  to  protect  himself—  (a   LAUGH)."      This 


216      Two-penny  Trash;  Ist  March,  1831. 

"  laugh  "  was,  as  I  am  told  by  a  gentleman  who  was 
present,  not  a  ^orse-laugh  nor  a  merry  laugh,  but  a  sort  of 
ha!  laugh,  uttered  with  the  chin  twisted,  the  lips  lifted, 
and  the  nose  drawn  up,  as  if  the  olfactory,  as  well  as  the 
risible,  nerves  had  been  affected.  This  report  may  be  a  fa- 
brication on  the  part  of  the  reportherSy  for  any-thing  that  I 
know  to  the  contrary  ;  but  I  find  the  thing  published ^  and,  as 
a  publication,  I  remark  on  it.  What !  the  Preston  Cock  call 
for  the  protection  of  others,  and  those  others  that  very  body 
too  whom  he  so  becalled  and  so  expressed  his  contempt  of, 
when  on  his  progress  from  Preston  to  London !  It  can  never 
be  !  It  must  be  an  invention  of  the  reporther !  What!  he, 
w^ho  is  called  the  *'  Preston  Cocky'  because,  in  that  town, 
his  flags  represented  him  as  a  red  game  cocky  clapping  his 
wings  and  crowing,  while  Stanley  was,  upon  the  same 
flags,  represented  as  a  yellow  dunghill  cocky  running 
away,  HE  call  on  the  House  for  protectiojil  But,  then, 
as  to  the  feasibility  of  the  thing  called  for,  how  is  the  House 
to  protect  him  againstthe  tongues  or  pens  of  those  whom 
he,  or  his  reporther,  chooses,  by  name,  to  stigmatize  in  pub- 
lications, being,  or  purporting  to  be,  reports  of  speeches  made 
in  that  House?  He  is-not  ^^  intimidated^'  (ooh!  oohwho-o-ose 
afraid!),  and  he  knows  ''  very  well  how  to  defend  him* 
self  J'  Nobody  says  the  contrary  ;  but  I  do  remember  that,  at 
county  meeting  at  Winchester,  in  1817,  there  was  a  good-for- 
nothing  saucy  fellow,  under  the  Grand  Jury  chamber-window, 
who,  as  soon  as  he  began  to  open  his  mouth,  held  up  a 
long  wand  with  a  white  feather  tied  on  at  the  end  of  it; 
and  I  did  not  see  any  body  able  '^  to  protect'^  him  against 
that.  I  did  not  see  any  punishment  inflicted,  or  attempted 
to  be  inflicted  for  that  daring  breach  of  privilege.  As  to 
his  disclaiming  all  connexion  with  these  petitioners^  and 
all  participation  in  their  viewSy  I  leave  them  and  him  to 
settle  that  matter  between  them^  until,  at  least,  I  know  what 
their  petition  contained ;  and  this  I  beg  some  one  or  other 
of  them  to  have  the  goodness  to  let  me  know  as  soon  as 
possible,  as  I  shall  want  it  for  my  **  Letter  to  the  people 
of  Presfony*  which  will  be  published  on  the  1st  of  April, 
in  No,  10  of  the  Twopeniiy  Trash, 

Wm.  cobbett. 

CPrinted  by  Wm.  Cubbett,  Johnson's  Court,  Fleet  Strtet.J 


No.  X. 


COBBETT'S 

TWO-PENNY  TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  April,  1831. 


Published  monthly,  sold  at  I2s*  Od,  a  hundred,  and  /or  300,  tahe7i 

at  once,  lis. 


TO    THE 

LABOURERS  OF  ENGLAND, 

!•  Observations   to  Labourers,  on  the  subject  of  Far* 
liamentary  Reform, 

2.  Instructions  to  Labourers  for  raising  Cobbett's  Corn. 

3.  About  Truck'Sy stern  and  about  Preston  Cock. 


Kensington,  1st  Jpril,  1831. 
My  Friends, 

I  address  myself  to  the  labourers  of  the  whole  kingdom ; 

but  I  am  particularly  desirous  that  this  paper  should  be  read 

by  those  of  you  who  live  in  the  beautiful  valleys  of  the  south 

of  Wiltshire,  and  in  the  little  hard  parishes,  as  I  call  them, 

in  the  north  of  Hampshire,  beginning  at  the  lower  end  of 

Surrey  and  sweeping  along  over  the  little  dips  in  the  high 

lands  till  you  come  to  Stockbridge,  southward,  and  to  Wey- 

hill  and  Coombe,  northward.     I  wish  to  see  you  all  well  off; 

but  those  of  you  who  inhabit  these  parts  of  the  country  have 


London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet- street, 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 


218  Two-penny  Trash  5 

Keen,  as  far  as  ray  observation  has  gone,  the  most  hardly 
treated;  and,  therefore,  I  am  the  more  desirous  to  render 
you  service.     Again ;    of  the  numerous  parishes  in  these 
counties  I  select  as  objects  of  my  still  more  particular  regard, 
the  inhabitants  of  the  little  bunch  of  hard  parishes  in  Hamp- 
shire, consisting  of  East  Stratton,  West  Stratton,  Mitchel-  . 
dever,  Weston,  Wonston,  Sutton  Scotney,  Bullington,  Bar- 
ton Stacey,  Hunton,  and  Stoke- Charity.     The  reasons  vi'hy 
I  have  this  very  particular  regard  for  the  working  people  of 
these  parishes,  I  shall  have  an  opportunity  of  more  fully 
stating  anoth^  time ;  but  I  cannot  pass  over  the  present 
occasion  without  declaring  in  this  public  manner,  that  my 
partiality  in  this  case    arises   from    the    circumstance   of 
Joseph  and  Robert  Mason,  of  Bullington,  having  been 
transported  for   life,    after  having  been   condemned   to 
death.     To  relate  the  whole  of  the  story  of  these  two  ex- 
cellent labourers,  will,  when  I  come  to  discharge,  as  I  shall 
one  of  these  days,  that  sacred  duty,  due  to  defenceless  vir- 
tue and  to  truth  ;  the  whole  of  their  story,  together  with 
that  of  poor  Cooke,  of  Mitcheldever,  whosey^neraZ  will  be 
remembered  in  that  parish  for  ages  yet  to  come ;  the  whole 
of  this  story,  together  with  all  the  interesting  circumstances 
belonging  to  it,  will  demand  a  hook ;  which  book,  if  it  shall 
please  God  to  preserve  my  life  and  give  me  health,  I  will 
WTite  and'publish. 

For  the  present  suffice  it  to  observe,  that  the  two  Masons, 
Joseph,  aged  thirty-two  years,  having  a  wife  and  one 
child,  and  Robert,  aged  twenty-four,  unmarried,  were  both 
natives  of  Bullington,  where  they  had  lived  all  their  lives. 
They  have  a  mother  who  has  been  many  years  a  widow, 
whom  they  always  maintained  and  kept  from  the  parish  by 
their  labour.  They  rented  a  cottage  and  three  acres  and  a 
half  of  land  at  ten  pounds  a  year.  They  kept  a  cow,  raised 
potatoes,  turnip  seed,  and  used  to  have  a  little  bit  of  wheat. 


1st  April,  1831.  219 

This  they  cultivated  themselves.  They  worked  for  the  neigh- 
bouring farmers ;  earned  their  money  by  very  hard  labour  ; 
were  perfectly  sober  and  honest  men,  and  an  example  in 
these  respects  to  the  v^hole  country  round  about ;  but,  it  was 
proved  that  they  read  Cobbett's  Register,  and  Cob- 
bett's  History  of  the  Protestant  Reformation; 
and  they  were  condemned  to  death,  Joseph  for  being 
present,  as  one  of  a  mob  who  received  two  sovereigns  from 
Thomas  Dowden,  of  Mitcheldever ;  and  Robert  for 
being  present  in  the  mob  who  received  five  shillings  from  the 
Parson  at  Barton  Stacey.  This  is  all  that  I  shall  say  rela- 
tive to  these  aiBfairs  at  present,  except  that  J  vouch  for  the 
truth  of  the  facts  here  stated ;  that,  when  I  was  in  Hamp- 
shire the  other  day^  I  went  to  see  the  poor  wido^%  their 
mother;  that  I  found  that  Joseph's  child  was  living  with 
her;  that  Joseph's  wife  was  gone  to  live  at  service  at 
Barton  Farm,  Bishop  Stocke;  and  that  the  widow  was 
likely  to  keep  the  cottage,  her  cow,  and  piece  of  ground, 
owing  to  the  goodness  of  the  owner,  whom  I  understood  to 
be  Mr.  Edward  Twinham,  of  Witchurch;  and  here,  in 
these  'circumstances,  you  have  the  foundation  of  my  most 
particular  anxiety  for  the  well-being  of  the  labouring  people, 
including  the  makers  of  the  ploughs,  and  the  makers  of  the 
cloths,  and  the  makers  of  the  buildings,  as  well  as  the  tillers 
of  the  land  in  this  little  bunch  of  flinty  parishes. 

My  friends,  the  working  people  of  England,  whether  you 
actually  turn  up  the  land  or  make  the  implements  for  doing 
it  with ;  whether  you  cut  down  the  corn  or  the  wood,  or 
make  the  tools  necessary  for  the  purpose,  or  weave  or  make 
up  the  clothing  necessary  for  those  who  do  the  work :  to  the 
whole  of  you  I  now  announce  Vvith  feelings  of  great  joy  that 
we  are  now  about  to  have  THAT  reform  of  parliament,  for 
which  Joseph  Mason  carried  a  petition  to  the  king,  from 
Bullington  to  Brighton,  signed  by  about  two  hundred  of  the 

l2 


220  Two-PEXNY  Trash  ; 

labourers  of  those  little  bard  parishes,  which  petition  the 
king  did  not  receive ;  and  I  will  here  add  my  opinion  that, 
if  the  king  had  not  been  advised  not  to  receive  it,  but  to 
receive  it  graciously,  there  never  would  have  been  a  riot  in 
those  little  hard  parishes.  In  that  petition,  drawn  up  by 
Joseph  Mason^  himself,  the  king  would  have  seen  the 
true  state  of  the  labourers  of  England.  However,  the  past 
cannot  be  recalled :  we  cannot  bring  back  yesterday ;  and, 
though  the  two  Masons,  and  many  others,  may  be,  and  I 
trust  will  be,  brought  back  to  their  parents,  their  wives  and 
their  children,  let  us,  in  the  mean  time,  make  the  most  of 
the  good  which,  through  the  means  of  the  king  and  his 
ministers,  we  are  now  about  to  obtain. 

As  long  as  the  parliament  remained  unreformed,  there 
was  no  hope  of  better  days  for  the  labourer ;  the  farmer  was 
unable  to  give  him  a  sufficiency  of  wages  without  ruin  to 
himself,  owing  to  the  enormous  burthens  which  he  had  to 
bear.  The  reform  of  parliament  will,  and  must  diminish 
these  burthens.  It  was  useless  for  men  to  be  industrious, 
sober,  and  frugal,  while  misery  was  still  their  lot  in  spite  of 
the  constant  practice  of  these  virtues.  They  laboured  ia 
despair ;  and  therefore  when  idleness  was  as  well  rewarded 
as  industry,  w^hy  should  they  labour?  Things  will  now  be 
changed  :  we  shall  have  encouragement  to  practise  care  and 
frugality.  I  am  about  to  teach  you  how  each  of  you  who 
has  a  little  piece  of  ground  in  his  hands  may  greatly  add  to 
his  well  being ;  but  even  this  I  ^was  discouraged  from 
doing  as  long  as  the  parliament  remained  unreformed.  I, 
some  years  ago,  wrote  a  little  book  called  ^^  Cottage 
Economy,"  of  which  book  scores  of  thousands  of  copies 
have  been  sold.  It  teaches  the  brewing  of  beer,  the  making 
of  bread,  the  rearing  of  pigs  and  poultry,  the  keeping  of  a 
cow,  the  curing  of  bacon  ;  and,  in  short,  every-thing  neces- 
sary to  teach  a  small  family  how  to  make  the  most  of  a  little 


1st  April,  1831.  221 

bit  of  ground,  and  how  to  live  well  by  good  management. 
Particularly  how  to  dispense  with  the  everlasting  pot  hung 
over  the  fire  to  cook  the  soul-degrading  potatoes.  But,  even 
when  I  wrote  that  book,  I  told  the  reader  that  it  would  be 
of  little  use  in  general  without  a  reform  of  the  parlia-  . 
ment. 

It  may  be  asked_,  will  a  reform  of  the  parliament  give  the 
labouring  man  a  cow  or  a  pig ;  will  it  put  bread  and  cheese 
into  his  satchel,  instead  of  infernal  cold  potatoes ;  will  it  give 
him  a  bottle  of  beer  to  carry  to  the  field,  instead  of  making 
him  lie  down  upon  his  belly  to  drink  out  of  the  brook ;  will 
it  put  upon  his  back  a  Sunday  coat  and  send  him  to  church, 
instead  of  leaving  him  to  stand  lounging  about  shivering, 
with  an  unshaven  face  and  a  carcase  half  covered  with  a  rag- 
ged smock-frock,  with  a  filthy  cotton  shirt  beneath  it  as  yellow 
as  a  kite's  foot  ?  Will  parliamentary  reform  put  an  end  to 
the  harnessing  of  men  and  women  by  a  hired  overseer  to 
draw  carts  like  beasts  of  burthen ;  will  it  put  an  end  to  the 
practice  of  putting  up  labourers  to  auction  like  negroes  in 
Carolina  or  Jamaica ;  will  it  put  an  end  to  the  system  which 
caused  the  honest  labourer  to  be  fed  worse  than  the  felons 
in  the  gaols;  will  it  put  an  end  to  the  system  which 
caused  almost  the  whole  of  the  young  women  to  incur  the 
indelible  disgrace  of  being  on  the  point  of  being  mothers  be- 
fore they  were  married,  owing  to  that  degrading  poverty 
which  prevented  the  fathers  themselves  from  obtaining  the 
means  of  paying  the  parson  and  the  clerk;  will  parliamen- 
tary reform  put  an  end  to  the  foul,  the  beastly,  the  nasty 
practice  of  separating  men  from  their  wives  by  force,  and 
committing  to  the  hired  overseer  the  bestial  superintendence 
of  their  persons  day  and  night ;  will  parhamentary  reform 
put  an  end  to  this  which  was  amongst  the  basest  acts  which 
the  Roman  tyrants  committed  towards  their  slaves  ?  The 
enemies  of  reform  jeeringly  ask  us,  whether  reform  w^ould  do 


222  Two-PENNY  Trash; 

these  tbings  for  us ;  and  I  answer  distinctly  that  IT  WOULD 
DO  THEM  ALL. 

But  there  are  two  things  which  we  ought  to  be  upon  our 
guard  against:  the  first  is,  a  notion  that  all  these  things  will 
be  done  at  once  and  immediately:  and  the  other 'is  the 
notion  that  w^e  can  all  be  equally  rich,  and  all  live  in  the 
same  sort  of  way.  With  regard  to  the  first  of  these,  it  would 
be  to  show  very  little  good  sense,  to  suppose  that  such  a 
mass  of  evils  and  abuses  is  wholly  to  be  removed  in  a  day. 
Lord  Grey,  who  is  the  king's  chief  minister,  and  who  is 
the  real  and  sole  author  of  this  reform,  has  never  had  any 
hand  in  ayiy  of  those  measures  which  have  caused  our  suf- 
ferings ;  but  it  is  impossible  for  him,  even  him,  to  restore 
things  to  a  proper  state  in  a  day  or  even  in  a  year.  We  want 
the  thing  done;  but  we  want  it  done  peaceably,  and  without 
the  creating  of  any  more  suffering  than  strict  justice  demands, 
and  than  is  necessary  to  the  happiness  and  honour  of  our 
country.  There  must  be,  you  will  understand,  suffering; 
there  must  be  distress  created  amongst  others,  in  consequence 
of  doing  bare  justice  to  the  industrious  classes.  Reform: 
will  create  nothing,  except  that  it  will  cause  the  labourers 
of  the  country  to  be  more  productive :  it  will  not  (except  in 
this  comparatively  trifling  degree)  add  to  the  quantity  of  ^ 
bread  and  meat  and  other  things  in  the  country.  Generally 
speaking,  it  will  create  nothing  that  is  good  to  man ;  but  it 
will  cause  a  different  distribution  of  every^thing  that  is  good. 
There  are  millions,  yea,  millions,  who  now  live  luxuriously 
in  idleness,  while  those  who  do  the  work  are,  or  at  least  have 
been  ;  half  star^'^ed.  Reform  will  take  from  the  idlers  and 
restore  to  the  laborious.  But  a  peaceable  reform,  that  which 
we  all  desire,  will  not  do  this  all  at  once.  From  this  new 
distribution  the  idlers  must  suffer;  and  though  the  new 
distribution  will  be  perfectly  just,  justice  will  demand  from 
us  that  w^e  make  the  suffering  as  supportable  as  is  consistent 


1st  April,  1831.  223 

with  our  own  well-being  and  with  the  safety,  honour,  and 
welfare  of  our  country.  For  instance,  now,  suppose  there 
to  be  in  the  ten  little  hard  parishes  above-mentioned,  some 
pensioner,dead-weightman,sineCure-holder,pluralist-pai:6on 

loan-monger,  or  any  other  person  living  upon  the  labour  of 
the  people;  and  suppose  it  to  be  strictly  just,  that  laws  should 
be  passed  that  would  take  from  him  all  that  he  has  to  live 
on,  it  would  not  be  morally  just  in  us  to  demand  such  a  law, 
because  common  humanity  would  forbid  it:     We,  therefore, 
who  have  been  suffering  forty,  nay  more  than  torty  years, 
or  fifty,  ought  now  to  be  patient  for  a  little  longer.     We  see 
land-  and  it  would  be  foolish  indeed  to  jump  into  the  sea 
of  confusion  and  anarchy  to  reach  it,  when  we  know,  that, 
by  quietly  remaining  on  board,  the  ship  would  bring  us  to  it 
and  land  us  in  safety.     By  the  unnatural,  the  monstrous 
system  of  debts  and  taxes,  the  riches  and  the  food  and  the 
raiment  of  the  country  have  been  drawn  together  mto  great 
masses.    "  Where  the  carcase  is,  there  will  the  eagles  be 
gathered  together."     The  people  have  followed  the  masses 
of  riches,  of  food  and  of  raiment.    The  million  and  a 
half  of  human  beings  assembled  in  and  around  London : 
the    swarms    got  together    at    Bath,  Brighton,   Chelten- 
ham,  and    various    other    places,    are    maintained    there 
by    the    money,    food     and     raiment     drawn     from    the 
productive  parts  of  the  country.     When  the  reformed  par- 
liament shall  have  diminished  the  taxes  to  their  proper 
standard,  the  money,  the  food,  and  the  raiment,  will  remain 
with  those  who  own  and  cultivate  the  land,  and  who  make 
the  clothing,  and  the  houses,  and  the  tools.     The  swarms  be- 
fore-mentioned will  and  must  suffer  from  this  restoration  of 
goods  to  their  right  owners ;  and  as  men  when  assembled 
in  great  bodies  make  more  noise  than  when  they  are  thinly 
scattered,  the  outcry  of  the  sufferers  will  be  dreadful,  and 
especially  if  the  suffering  be  pushed  to  its  extreme  all  at 
once.     Reform  will  be  reviled  as  the  cause  of  all  this  suf- 


224  Two-PEVNY  Trash  ; 

fering;  the  revilers  not  considering  that  the  beggaring  of  the 
one  fat  penj^ioner,  puts  a  flitch  of  bacon  on  the  rack  of  two 
or  three  hundred  labourers.  It  will  be  the  duty  of  the  go- 
vernment to  do  the  thing,  and  it  will  be  our  duty  to  stand 
by  that  government  in  the  doing  of  it ;  but  when  the  actual 
dispersion  of  whole  masses  of  people  must  be  the  unavoidable 
consequence,  it  would  neither  be  politically  wise  nor  morally 
just,  even  if  the  government  had  the  power  to  effect  it 
peaceably,  to  do  the  thing  all  at^  once.  Therefore,  my 
friends,  let  us  be  patient:  Reform  is  merely  the  instru- 
ment with  which  to  do  the  good ;  and  if  we  have  but  a  little 
patience,  the  whole  of  the  good  will  come.  Be  patient 
therefore  now,  prove  to  those  who  have  insolently  called  you 
peasantry  and  lower  orders,  that  you  have  sense  and  mode- 
ration and  humanity  and  love  of  country,  ifj  they  have 
none. 

With  regard  to  the  other  topic ;  namely,  the  notion  that 
all  men  ought  to  be  equally  rich  and  live  in  the  same  sort 
of  way,  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  say  much,  or  indeed, 
any-thing,  to  the  far  greater  part  of  you ;  and  it  would  not 
have  been  necessary  to  say  one  word  to  any  of  you  on  the 
subject,  had  it  not  been  for  the  stupid  industry  of  those  who 
have  been  living  on  your  labours,  to  give  you  what  they  call 
education  j  that  is  to  say,  book-knowledge,  which  they  have 
been  cramming  down  your  throats  by  the  means  of  their 
schools  and  their  tracts,  all  having  one  and  the  same  ten- 
dency ;  namely,  to  make  you  live  contentedly  upon  pota- 
toes, while  their  tables  were  covered  with  the  best  of  bread 
and  of  meat,  and  some  of  them  eating  strawberries  at  a 
guinea  an  ounce.  In  this  work  of  educating,  however,  they 
have,  without  intending  it,  produced  a  pretty  prevalent  opi- 
nion that  there  ought  to  be  an  equal  distribution  of  riches 
as  well  as  of  knowledge ;  and  that  all  men  ought  to  live  in 
the  same  sort  of  way.  This,  a  bare  survey  of  the  world 
wijl  convince  you,  never  can  be.     If  there  were  no  rich 


1st  April,  1831.  225 

farmer,  there  could  be  no  store  of  corn  or  of  meat  in  the 
country ;  if  there  were  no  gentlemen  to  be  magistrates,  there 
could  be  neither  peace  nor  property  ;  if  there  were  no  legis- 
lators of  great  integrity  and  knowledge,  the  country  must 
be  torn  to  pieces  for  want  of  laws ;  if  there  were  no  men  of 
great  learning  and  experience,  there  could  be  no  judges  to 
execute  the  laws ;  if  there  were  no  statesmen,  there  could 
be  no  state,  and  the  nation  would  have  no  means  of  pro- 
viding for  its  independence  and  safety.  If  all  men  were 
upon  an  equality  in  point  of  means,  England  would  become 
what  the  wilds  of  America  are,  inhabited  by  wild  men,  no- 
body would  work  except  just  to  provide  food  and  raiment 
for  the  day ;  and  our  country  would  become  the  most  beg- 
garly upon  the  earth,  instead  of  being  what  it  formerly  was 
(and  I  hope  and  trust  will  be  again)  the  pride  of  its  own 
people  and  the  envy  of  the  world. 

Besides,  my  friends ;  besides  this  impossibility ;  besides 
that  this  inequality  in  point  of  riches  is  contrary  to  the 
order  of  the  world  and  the  decrees  of  God  ;  besides  this,  I 
beseech  you  not  to  overlook  the  advantages  which  the 
labouring  man  has  over  his  rich  neighbour.  The  latter  has 
diet  and  drink  and  fuel  and  clothing  and  bedding,  which  the 
former  would  not  look  at  with  longing  eyes  if  he  knew  the 
cares  and  anxieties  with  which  they  are  attended.  What 
would  the  lord  or  the  squire,  sitting  in  his  carpeted  room, 
and  half  a  score  dishes  before  him,  give  for  that  appetite 
with  which  the  ploughman  eats  his  bread  and  cheese,  curled 
up  under  the  shelter  of  a  hedge,  or  with  which,  sitting  on 
his  brick  floor,  he  eats  the  bit  of  bacon  and  pudding  after  his 
return,  dividing  the  last  mouthful  with  his  children  !  And, 
oh !  what  would  either  of  them  give,  when  getting  into  his 
bed  of  down,  for  that  sleep  which  the  labourer  enjoys  when 
he  tumbles  down  upon  his  bed  or  upon  a  bench  too  weary 
to  pull  off  his  clothes  !     We  must  set  oriQ  thing  against  the 

L  5 


^26  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

other.  The  labourer  knows  nothing  of  the  curse  of  ambition  ; 
he  has  nobody  to  grudge  him  his  earnings ;  there  is  no  hellish 
envy  at  work  to  calumniate  him,  pull  him  down,  or  supplant 
him.  His  children,  destined  to  tread  the  same  path  which 
he  has  trodden,  he  has  always  with  him  or  near  him.  I 
have  always  remarked  that  the  labouring  people  are  the  most 
affectionate  parents  and  children ;  and  if  there  were  no 
more  than  this,  this  alone  is  more  than  an  over-balance  for 
all  the  advantages  that  riches  and  high-life  can  bestow. 
For  my  own  part,  though  enjoying  all  the  blessings  that 
constant  sobriety,  resolute  abstinence,  and  consequent  un- 
interrupted health  can  give,  I  have  often,  after  very  serious 
reflection  upon  the  matter,  come  to  the  determination  that  I 
should  have  been  still  happier  than  I  have  been,  though  I 
have  been  a  very  happy  man,  if  I  had  remained  (with  a  just 
and  sufficient  reward  for  my  labour)  a  labouring  man  all 
the  days  of  my  life. 

But,  though  I  thus  preach  content,  far  from  me  the 
villanous  thought  of  recommending  to  those  who  labour 
truly  and  honestly  to  be  content  without  receiving  a  suffi- 
ciency of  food  and  of  raiment  for  their  labour.  And,  of  all 
the  detestable  villains  ever  fostered  by  tyranny  and  corrup- 
tion, the  canting  wretches,  called  Methodist  teachers,  appear 
to  me  to  be  the  worst.  These  are  the  true  blasphemers ; 
for  they  represent  the  Almighty  as  willing  and  even  wishing 
the  people  should  live  in  a  half-starving  state ;  that  they 
should  be  fed  upon  garbage  or  potatoes ;  and  that  this  is 
conducive  to  their  eternal  salvation.  Read  that  Bible,  my 
friends,  about  which  these  canting  hypocrites  talk  so  much, 
read  it;  only  read  it,  and  you  will  find  that,  from  one  end 
to  the  other,  the  promise  of  good  living  is  made  to  those  who 
shall  do  well,  and  the  threat  of  hunger  to  those  who  shall 
do  ill.  You  will  find  the  precept,  that  those  who  will  not 
work  shall  not  eat.    You  will  find  a  long  string  of  bitter 


1st  April,  1831.  227 

curses  on  those  who  defraud  the  labourer  of  his  hire.  Yoa 
will  find  that  even  the  ox  is  not  to  be  muzzled  as  he  treadeth. 
out  the  corn.  You  will  find  that  the  labourer,  when  he  has 
-discharged  his  task,  is  not  to  be  sent  away  empty  handed, 
but  is  to  receive  freely,  from  the  granary,  the  flock,  and  the 
wine-press,  of  the  master.  And  yet,  in  the  face  of  all  this, 
these  canting  Methodist  ruffians,  well  crammed  with  meat 
and  ale  themselves,  preach  to  the  people  that,  to  live  upon 
potatoes,  or  to  lie  down  and  die  quietly  with  starvation,  is 
a  mark  of  grace,  and  a  sure  means  of  securing  eternal  salva- 
tion. Of  all  the  tools  of  the  boroughmongers  these  have 
been  the  most  choice.  For  forty  years  they  were  labouring 
to  induce  the  labouring  people  of  England  to  live  upon 
potatoes;  while  they,  by  defrauding  them  of  a  part  of  the 
few  pennies  that  they  got,  were  livdng  in  luxury. 

Far  from  me  to  inculcate  content  with  potatoes  in  ex- 
change for  hard  labour.  Such  labour  merits  a  sufficiency 
of  bread,  of  meat,  of  beer,  good  fuel,  good  clothing,  good 
lodging ;  and  if  the  man  who  labours  honestly  and  truly  at 
whatever  sort  of  work,  do  not  obtain  a  sufficiency  of  these 
for  himself  and  his  family  too,  I  despise  him  for  being  con- 
tent ;  I  despise  him  for  being  quiet ;  I  despise  him  for  lying 
clown  and  starving  with  the  hope  of  salvation  for  his  reward. 
Such  a  man  is  a  worm  made  to  be  devoured  by  the  fowls  of 
the  air,  or  to  be  trodden  on  and  squeezed  to  death.  For 
many,  many  years,  and  especially  since  the  union  with  Ire- 
land, endeavours  have  been  making  to  induce  the  English 
labourers  to  live  upon  potatoes.  Had  it  not  been  for  that 
accursed,  that  soul-degrading,  that  man-enslaving  root;  the 
people  of  Ireland  never  could  have  been  brought  to  their 
present  miserable  state.  All  manner  of  means  have 
been  resorted  to  to  bring  the  English  to  their  pre- 
sent miserable  state.  Thank  God  Almighty,  the  at- 
tempts have  failed ;  a^nd  I  do  not  know  that  I  ever  expe- 


228  *       Two-penny  Trash; 

rienced  more  pleasure  in  all  my  life  than  I  did  upon  findicg 
that  the  working  people  in  the  bunch  of  little  flinty  parishes 
in  Hampshire,  now  get  a  sufficiency  of  bacon  and  bread* 
The  whole  of  my  journey  into  Hampshire,  all  the  circun>- 
stances  considered,  was  the  pleasantest  I  ever  tookJ[in  my 
life.  The  havoc  made  in  those  parishes  amongst  the  la- 
bourers has  been  dreadful ;  the  victims  have  been  nume- 
rous ;  but  those  who  remain  have  bacon  and  bread  and 
beer;  and  never  will  they  again  go  to  the  fields  with  cold 
potatoes  in  their  satchels.  Mr.  Dedams,  shoe-maker,  of 
Sutton  Scotney,  told  me  that  the  labourers  were  well  off 
and  contented ;  that  the  farmers  adhered  faithfully  to  their 
promises,  and  that  harmony  reigned  in  the  villages  such  as 
he  had  never  known  before,  "  Do  they  get  bacon  and 
bread  V  I  said ;  and  when  he  told  me  that  they  did,  I  said, 
*'  That  is  enough." 

Now,  my  friends,  this  bacon  being  the  standard  with  me, 
I  am  about  to  give  you  instructions  how  to  get  more  bacon 
than  you  would  be  able  to  get  without  those  instructions. 
T  am  not  conceited  enough  to  think  that  I  can  tell  you  any- 
thing useful  concerning  those  things  w^hich  you  have  been 
accustomed  to  from  your  infancy  ;  but  I  am  going  |to  tell 
you  about  something  that  you  cannot  know  any-thing  about. 
I  am  going  to  tell  you  how  to  get  the  means  of  fatting  a  pig 
of  ten  score,  without  peas,  beans,  barley,  or  oats.  God  for- 
give you  if  ybu  think  I  am  going  to  recommend  the  everlast- 
ing pot-boiling  potatoes,  which,  as  you  well  know,  make 
a  sort  of  stuff*  that  boils  half  away  in  the  pot,  and  the  re- 
mainder of  which  is  only  fit  to  grease  wheels;;with.  I  am 
going  to  tell  you  how  to  get  bacon  as  solid  and  as  sweet  as 
that  fatted  upon  barley-meal,  and  that  too,  without  going 
to  either  farmer  or  miller ;  that  is  to  say,  if  you  have  from 
ten  to  twenty  rods  of  ground,  and  mWlstrictly  follow  my 
directions. 


1st  April,  1831.  229 

»»► 
Instructions  to  Labourers  for  raising  Cobbett's 

Corn. 

I  will  first  describe  this  corn  to  you.  It  is  that  which  is 
sometimes  called  Indian  corn  ;  and  sometimes  people  call 
it  Indian  wheat.  It  is  that  sort  of  corn  which  the  disciples 
ate  as  they  were  going  up  to  Jerusalem  on  the  Sabbath-day. 
They  gathered  it  in  the  fields  as  they  went  along  and  ate  it 
green,  they  being  "  an  hungered/'  for  which,  you  know, 
th^  were  reproved  by  the  pharisees.  I  have  written  a  trea- 
tise on  this  corn,  in  a  book,  which  I  sell  for  two  and  six- 
pence, giving  a  minute  account  of  the  qualities,  the  culture, 
the  harvesting,  and  the  various  uses  of  this  corn ;  but  I 
shall  here  confine  myself  to  what  is  necessary  for  a  labourer 
to  know  about  it,  so  that  he  may  be  induced  to  raise,  and 
may  be  enabled  to  raise  enough  of  it  in  his  garden  to  fat  a 
pig  of  ten  score. 

There  are  a  great  many  sorts  of  this  corn.  They  all 
come  from  countries  which  are  hotter  than  England.  This 
sort,  which  my  eldest  son  brought  into  England,  is  a  dwarf 
kind,  and  is  the  only  kind  that  I  have  known  to  ripen  in 
this  country :  and  I  know  that  it  will  ripen  in  this  country  in 
any  summer ;  for,  I  had  a  large  field  of  it  in  1828  and  1829 ; 
and  last  year  (my  lease  at  my  farm  being  out  at  Michael- 
mas, and  this  corn  not  ripening  till  late  in  October)  I  had 
about  two  acres  in  my  garden  at  Kensington.  Within  the 
memory  of  man  there  have  not  been  three  summers  so  cold 
as  the  last,  one  after  another ;  and  no  one  so  cold  as  the 
last.  Yet  my  corn  ripened  perfectly  well,  and  this  you 
will  be  satisfiod  of  if  you  be  amongst  the  men  to  whom  this 
corn  is  given  from  me.  You  will  see  that  it  i^  in  the  shape 
of  the  cone  of  a  spruce  fir ;  you  will  see  that  the  grains  are 
fixed  round  a  stalk  which  is  called  the  cob.  These  stalks 
or  ears  come  out  of  the  side  of  the  plant  which  has  leaves 


230  Two-penny  Trash; 

like  a  flag,  which  plant  grows  to  about  three  feet  high,  and 
has  two  or  three,  and  sometimes  more,  of  these  ears  Or 
bunches  of  grain.  Out  of  the  top  of  the  plant  comes  the 
tassel,  which  resembles  the  plumes  of  feathers  upon  a 
hearse ;  and  this  is  the  flower  of  the  plant. 

The  grain  is,  as  you  wdll  see,  about  the  size  of  a  large 
pea,  and  there  are  from  two  to  three  hundred  of  these  grains 
upon  the  ear^  or  cob.  In  my  treatise  I  have  shown  that,  in 
America,  all  the  hogs  and  pigs,  all  the  poultry  of  every  sort, 
the  greater  part  of  the  oxen,  and  a  considerable  part  of  the 
sheep,  are  fatted  upon  this  corn ;  that  it  is  the  best  food  for 
horses;  and  that,  w^hen  ground  and  dressed  in  various  ways, 
it  is  used  in  bread,  in  puddings,  in  several  other  ways  in  fa- 
milies ;  and  that,  in  short,  it  is  the  real  staff  of  life,  in  all 
the  countries  where  it  is  in  common  culture,  and  where  the 
climate  is  hot.  When  used  for  poultry,  the  grain  is  rubbed 
off  the  cob.  Horses,  sheep,  and  pigs,  bite  the  grain  off,  and 
leave  the  cob;  but  horned  cattle  eat  cob  and  all. 

I  am  to  speak  of  it  to  you,  however,  only  as  a  thing  to 
make  you  some  bacon,  for  which  use  it  surpasses  all  other 
grain  whatsoever.  When  the  grain  is  in  the  whole  ear,  it  is 
called  corn  in  the  ear ;  w^hen  it  is  rubbed  off  the  cob,  it  is 
called  shelled  corn.  Now,  obser^^e,  ten  bushels  of  shelled 
corn  are  equal,  in  the  fatting  of  a  pig,  to  fifteen  bushels  of 
barley  ;  and  fifteen  bushels  of  barley,  if  properly  ground  and 
managed,  will  make  a  pig  of  ten  score,  if  he  be  not  too  poor 
when  you  begin  to  fat  him.  Observe  that  every  body  who 
has  been  in  America  knows,  that  the  finest  hogs  in  the  world 
are  fatted  in  that  country ;  and  no  man  ever  saw  a  hog 
fatted  in  that  country  in  any  other  way  than  tossing  the  ears 
of  corn  over  to  him  in  the  sty,  leaving  him  to  bite  it  off  the 
ear,  and  deal  with  it  according  to  his  pleasure.  The  finest 
and  solidest  bacon  in  the  world  is  produced  in  this  way. 

Now,  then,  I  know,  that  a  bushel  of  shelled  corn  may  be 


1st  April,  1831.  2J1 

grown  upon  one  single  rood  of  ground,  sixteen  feet  and  a 
half  each  way.  I  have  grown  more  than  that  this  last 
summer ;  and  any  of  you  may  do  the  same  if  you  will  strictly 
follow  the  instructions  which  I  am  now  about  to  give  you. 

1.  Late  in  March  (I  am  doing  it  now),  or  in  the  first 
fortnight  of  April,  dig  your  ground  up  very  deep,  and  let  it 
lie  rough  till  between  the  seventh  and  fifteenth  of  May. 

2.  Then,  (in  dry  weather,  if  possible,)  dig  up  the  ground 
again,  and  make  it  smooth  at  top.  Draw  drills  with  a  line 
two  feet  apart,  just  as  you  do  drills  for  peas  5  rub  the  grains 
oflf  the  cob ;  put  a  little  very  rotten  and  fine  manure  along 
the  bottom  of  the  drill ;  lay  the  grains  along  upon  that  six 
inches  apart ;  cover  the  grain  over  with  fine  earth,  so  that 
there  be  about  an  inch  and  a  half  on  the  top  of  the  grain  ; 
pat  the  earth  down  a  little  with  the  back  of  a  hoe  to  make 
it  lie  solid  on  the  grain. 

3.  If  there  be  any  danger  of  slugs,  you  must  kill  them 
before  the  corn  comes  up  if  possible  ;  and  the  best  way  to 
do  this  is  to  put  a  little  hot  lime  in  a  bag,  and  go  very  early 

''in  the  morning,  and  shake  the  bag  all  round  the  edges  of  the 
ground  and  over  the  ground.  Doing  this  three  or  four  times 
very  early  in  a  dewy  morning  or  just  after  a  shower,  will 
destroy  all  the  slugs  :  and  this  ought  to  be  done  for  all  other, 
crops  as  well  as  for  that  of  corn. 

4.  When  the  corn  comes  up,  you  must  take  care  to  keep 
all  birds  off  till  it  is  two  or  three  inches  high ;  for  the  spear 
is  so  sweet,  that  the  birds  of  all  sorts  are  very  apt  to  peck  it 
off,  particularly  the  doves  and  the  larks  and  pigeons.  As 
soon  as  it  is  fairly  above  ground,  give  the  whole  of  the  ground 
{in  dry  w^eather)  a  flat  hoeing,  and  be«sure  to  move  all  the 
ground  close  round  the  plants.  When  the  weeds  begin  to 
appear  again,  give  the  ground  another  hoeing,  but  always  ia 
dry  weather.     When  the  plants  get  to  be  about  a  foot  high 


232  .  Two-penny  Trash; 

or  a  little  more,  dig  the  ground  between  the  rows,  and  work 
the  earth  up  a  little  against  the  stems  of  the  plants. 

5.  About  the  middle  of  August  you  will  see  the  tassel 
springing   up   out   of  the    middle   of  the   plant,    and  the 
ears   coming  out  of  the   sides.      If  weeds  appear  in  the 
ground    hoe    it    again  to    kill    the  weeds,   so    that  the 
ground  may  be  always  kept  clean.     About  the  middle  of 
September  you  will  find  the  grains  of  the  ears  to  be  full  of 
milk,  just  in  the  state  that  the  ears  were  at  Jerusalem  when 
the  disciples  cropped  them  to  eat.     From  this  milky  state 
they,  like  the  grains  of  wheat,  grow  hard ;  and  as  soon  as 
the  grains  begin  to  be  hard,  you  should  cut  oflf  the  tops  of 
the  corn  and  the  long  flaggy  leaves,  and  leave  the  ears  to 
ripen  upon  the  stalk  or  stem.     If  it  be  a  warm  summer,  they 
will  be  fit  to  harvest  by  the  last  of  October ;  but  it  does  not 
signify  if  they  remain  out  until  the  middle  of  November  or 
even  later.     The  longer  they  stay  out  the  harder  the  grain 
will  be. 

6.  Each  ear  is  covered  in  a  very  curious  manner  with  a 
husk.  The  best  way  for  you  will  be  when  you  gather  in 
your  crop  to  strip  off  the  husks,  to  tie  the  ears  in  bunches  of 
six  or  eight  or  ten,  and  to  hang  them  up  to  nails  in  the  walls, 
or  against  the  beams  of  your  house ;  for  there  is  so  much 
Hioisture  in  the  cob  that  the  ears  are  apt  to  heat  if  put 
together  in  great  parcels.     The  room  in  which  I  write  in 

.  London  is  now  hung  all  round  with  bunches  of  this  corn. 
The  bunches  may  be  hung  up  in  a  shed  or  stable  for  a  while, 
and,  when  perfectly  dry,  they  may  be  put  into  bags. 

7.  *  Now,  as  to  the  mode  of  using  the  corn  :  if  for  poultry, 
you  must  rub  the  grains  off  the  cob ;  but  if  for  pigs,  give 
them  the  v/hole  ears.  You  will  find  some  of  the  ears  in 
Vv'hich  the  grain  is  still  soft.  Give  these  to  your  pig  first; 
and  keep  the  hardest  to  the  last.     You  will  soon  see  how 


1st  April,  1831.  233 

much  the  pig  will  require  in  a  day,  because  pigs,  more  de- 
cent than  many  rich  men,  never  eat  any  more  than  is  neces- 
sary to  them.  You  will  thus  have  a  pig ;  you  will  have  two 
flitches  of  bacon,  two  pig's  cheeks,  one  set  of  souse,  two  gris- 
kins,  two  spair-iibs,  from  both  which.  I  trust  in  God  you  will 
keep  the  jaws  of  the  Methodist  parson ;  and  if,  while  you 
are  drinking  a  mug  of  yoiir  own  ale,  after  having  dined  upon 
one  of  these,  you  drink  my  health,  you  may  be  sure  that  it 
will  give  you  more  merit  in  the  sight  of  God  as  well  as  of 
man,  than  you  would  acquire  by  groaning  the  soul  out  of 
your  body  in  responses  to  the  blasphemous  cant  of  the  sleek- 
headed  Methodist  thief  that  would  persuade  you  to  live  upon 
potatoes. 

*  You  must  be  quite  sensible  that  I  cannot  have  any  mo- 
tive but  your  good  in  giving  you  this  advice,  other  than  the 
delight  which  I  take  and  the  pleasure  w'hich  I  derive  from 
doing  that  good.  You  are  all  personally  unknown  to  me : 
in  all  human  probability  not  one  man  in  a  thousand  will 
€ver  see  me.  You  have  no  more  polver  to  show  your  grati- 
tude to  me  than  you  have  to  cause  me  to  live  for  a  hundred 
years.  I  do  not  desire  that  you  should  deem  this  a  favour 
received  from  me.  The  thing  is  worth  your  trying  at  any 
rate. 

I  am  now  preparing  bags  of  ears  of  this  corn  to  be  sent  to 
the  following  gentlemen,  in  number  as  stated  against  their 
names  respectively.  I  request  them  to  give  them  to  such 
labouring  men  as  they  may  choose,  and  to  each  labouring 
man  a  copy  of  this  number  of  my  little  work,  along  with  the 
Indian  corn.  To  Mr.  Dedams,  of  Sutton  Scotney,  I 
have  to  make  this  request,  namely,  that  if  I  do  i^ot  send  him 
enough  for  the  labourers  of  that  little  bunch  of  hard  pa- 
rishes, he  will  write  to  me  for  more ;  for  I  have  a  particular 
desire  to  show  my  regard  for  those  parishes.  I  was  once 
going  on  horseback  across  the  country,  through  the  villages 


234  Two-Penny  Trash; 

from  Winchester  to  Burghclere,  and  they  having  displeased 
me  at  the  inn  at  Winchester,  I  had  gone  olF,  I  and  my  little 
boy,  without  breakfast ;  when  I  came  to   Stoke-Charity,  I 
was  in  the  true  English  mood  of  hunger  and  anger,  and  had 
just  spoken  in  such  an   angry  tone  to   him,    that   I  was 
ashamed  of  myself  the  moment  after.     Going  by  a  labour- 
er's house  in  the  outskirts  of  the  village,  I  asked  a  woman 
with  a  child  in  her  arms  w^hether  she  could  give  me  a  crust 
of  bread.     She  brought  me  out  all  that  they  had,  about  a 
pound  of  bread  and  a  quarter  x)f  a  pound  of  cheese,  and 
wanted  me  to  take  it  as  a  gift.     I  took  it  with  great  eager* 
ness,  giving  her,  of  course,  the  means  of  buying  something 
more;  but,  as  I  was  dividing  the  bread  and  the  cheese  be- 
tween Richard  and  me,  I  could  not  help  reflecting  on  the 
sufiferings  of  those  poor  people,  and  on  what  a  shame  it  was 
for  me,  who  lived  in  such  abundance,  to  be  out  of  temper 
merely  on  account  of  that  momentary  want  of  food,  whea 
the  contents  of  every  inn  and  every  public-house  were  at  my 
command.     If  I  could  discover  that  labourer  whose  wife 
gave  me  the  bread  and  cheese,  he  should  have  corn  enough  to 
plant  half  an  acre  of  ground.   To  save  postage,  and,  also,  to 
save  the  trouble  of  writing  to  Mr.  Djbdams,  of  Sutton  Scot- 
ney,  I  request  him  to  get  a  stout  man  or  two  to  dig  up  im- 
mediately, very  deep  and  clean,  the  whole  of  the  piece  of 
ground  at   the  back  of  the  cottage  of  the  widow  Mason, 
and  to  beg  her  to  let  it  lie  rough  dug  (not  smoothed  at  top% 
and  to  assure  her  that  I  will  go  down  to  BuUington,  at  the 
proper  season,  and  plant  the  corn  myself.     I  will  carry 
down  seed.    Mr.  Dedams  will  please  to  give  the  men  that 
dig  the  ground,  half-a-crown  a  day  each  of  them  for  their 
work,  each  of  them  also  a  pint  of  beer ;  but  they  must  have 
good  long  spades,  take  thin  spits,  and  go  deep.     They 
should  leave  the  ground  rough ;  and  dig  each  of  them  six 
rods  a  day.     I  beg  him  to  pay  them,  and  I  will  pay  him 


1st  April,  1831. 


235 


again ;  but  the  ground  ought  to  be  dug  up  as  soon  as  possi* 
ble.  Some  of  the  ears  of  corn  will  be  found  to  have  lost 
eome  of  their  grains,  which  has  been  owing  to  their  having 
been  knocked  about  in  the  bags,  or  in  the  granary ;  but  a  few 
will  be  enough  to  begin  with. 

The  following  is  the  list  of  the  gentlemen,  to  whom  T, 
agreeably  to  the  promise  contained  in  my  Register  of  I9th 
March,  shall  send  parcels  of  the  corn,  accompanied,  as  be- 
fore observed,  with  this  number  of  my  little  work. 


BERKSHIRE. 

Wm.  Budd,  Esq.,  Newbury. 
Mr.  Jamks  Tubb,    Sillingford 
near  Wallin^ford. 

•BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

^Rev.   a.   D.    Morrice,    Great 

Brickhill. 
Mr.  Joseph  Hull,  High  Wy- 
combe. 

CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

'  Mr.  N.  Walker,  Wisbeach. 
Mr.  Daniel  Frier,  Chatteris. 

ESSEX. 

Osborne  Butcher,  Esq.  Maiden 

V  GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

Mr.  Iles,  Fairford. 
Daniel  Croome, Esq;Berkeley 
Mr.  Gomme,  Bookseller,  Glou- 
cester. 

HAMPSHIRE. 

Mr.  Bigwood,  No.  40,  Queen- 
street,  Portsea. 

Mr.  Fielder,  BoUey,  South- 
ampton, 

Mr.  James  King,  Havant. 

Mr.  Richard  Smith,  Langard 
Brading",  Isle  of  Wight. 

Mr.  George  Gray,  Alton. 

V.  Earl,  Esq.,  Winchester. 

Joseph  Blount,  Esq.,  Uphurst- 
bourne,  Andover. 

Mr.  Ends  Dedams,  Sutton  Scot- 
ney,  Winchester. 

Mr.  John  Templer,  Lymington 

HUNTINGDONSHIRE. 

Mr.  Wm.  Toller,  St.  Neots. 
Mr.  William  BiRD,HuQtingdon 


KENT. 

Mr.  Fish,  Brewer,  Earls-street, 

Maidstone. 
Mr.    Kipping,     Cora    Dealer, 

Tonbridge. 
Mr.  Marti  N,Grocer,Seven  Oaks 
Mr.  Reeve,  Cranbrook. 

LINCOLNSHIRE. 

Mr.  Snaith,  Surgeon,  Boston. 

Mr.  Richard  Paddison,  Solici- 
tor, Lowth. 

Joshua  Plaskit,  Esq.,  Great 
Grimsby. 

Mr.  Matthew  Coats,  Gains- 
borough. 

Mr.W.  Bedford,  Sen.,  Lincoln.' 
Norfolk. 

Sir  Thomas  Beevor,  Bart., 
Hargham. 

Mr.  James  Keed,  Lynn, 

Mr.  Georoe  Wright,  Book- 
seller, Norwich. 

Wm.  Withers,  Esq.,  Holt, 

SUFFOLK. 

Mr.  Cobbing,  Shoemaker,  Bury 
James   Gudgeon,   Esq.,   Stow- 

market. 
Mr.  Clouting,  Farmer,  near 

Eye. 
Mr.  Childs,  Bungay. 

SURREY, 

Mr.  Pym,  Reigate. 

MR.RowLAND,Chilworth,Guild- 

ford. 
Mr.  Whitlaw,  Brewer,  Comp- 

ton,  Guildford. 
MR.THOMAsCoBBETTjFamhanx 


236  Two-penny  Trash; 


WILTSHIRE. 

Mr.  Barling,  Fisherton,  Salis- 
bury. 

Mr.  Strong  Pkwsey,  down  the 
valley  towards  Amesbury. 

jAMEsCROWDY,Esq.Hi^hworth. 

Mr.  Pike,  Publican,  Cricklade. 

Mr.  WiLCOXON,  Preston,  Lan- 
cashire. 


SUSSEX. 

Mr.  Brazier,  Worth  Lodge 
Farm,  Crawley. 

Mr.  Grove,  Battle. 

Mr.  James  Gray,  Butcher, 
Chichester. 

Mr.  George  Robinson,  Lewes 
Arms,  Lewes. 

Mr.  Hurst,  Innkeeper,  East- 
bourne. 

I  shall  send  all  these  parcels  off  on  Tuesday  next.  There  I 
are  some  of  the  gentlemen  who  will,  perhaps,  not  like  the"  | 
trouble  that  I  am  thus  imposing  upon  them  ;  but,  as  I  shall  | 
faij  the  carriage  of  all  the  parcels,  they  will  only  have  to  ;i 
throw  the  corn  to  their  chickens,  or  pigs,  and  put  the  patn-  i 
phlets  into  the  fire.  If  only  a  hundred  labourers,  or  onlysii 
one,  get  a  fat  hog  every  year  from  what  1  am  doing,  it  will  , 
be  a  great  deal  more  than  the  worth  of  a  thousand  times  the  i 
trouble  that  I  have  taken. 


PRESTON  COCK.       *  ., 

This  is  the  name  given  to  Hunt,  in  consequence  of  his 
having  put  upon  his  j^a^r,  at  Preston,  the  picture  of  a  red 
game-cock,  clapping  his  wings  and  crowing,  while  Stan- 
ley, his  opponent,  is  represented  as  a  dunghilUcock,  run- 
ning away.     This  great  ignorant  and  itnpudent  oaf,  with 
regard   to  whose  character  and    qualities  and  actions  and 
views,  the  good  people  of  Preston  were  completely  deceived, 
having  done  every-thing  in  his  power  to  prevent  the  re- 
form bill  from  passing,  I  made  a/wZZ  exposure  of  his  con- 
duct,  in  my  Register  of  the  12th  instant.     In  revenge  for 
this,  he  has  brought  a  petition  before  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, pretended  to  be  from  men  who  had  worked  lor  me, 
and  whom  I  had  paid  in  provisions.     I  will  first  insert  the 
report  from  the  Morning  Herald,  and  then  show  the 


1st  April,  1831.  237 

good  people  of  Preston  what  disgrace  they  have  been  de- 
luded to  bring  upon  themselves  ^nd  their  town.  The  trans- 
action took  place  on  the  20th  of  March, 

Mr.  Hunt  said  he  had  another  petition  to  present,  of  which  he 
had  given  notice.  It  showed  the  evils  of  the  truck  system,  and 
was  drawn  up  some  twelve  months  ago,  when  the  hou.  Member 
for  Staffordshire  brought  in  his  Bill  to  compel  the  payment  of 
labourers' wages  in  money.  The  petition  was  taken  muud  to  as 
many  as  eight  or  nine  Members  of  that  House  soon  after  it  was 
drawn  up,  but  they  had  all  objections  to  presenting  it,  for  some  rea- 
son or  other— but,  as  petitioners  conceived,  because  it  alluded  to 
an  individual — one  Cobbett — who  had  some  publication  of  which 
those  honourable  Members  were  in  dread.  The  petition  was 
brought  to  him  (Mr.  Hunt)  at  this  time,  to  s6e  whether  he  could 
recommend  the  petitioners  to  whom  they  should  apply  to  present  it; 
and,  upon  being  told  that  so  many  members  had  refused,  he  said, 
*'  if  he  were  in  Parliament,  and  knew  the  statements  in  it  to  be 
true,  he  should  have  no  hesitation  in  presenting  it.'*  When  he 
(Mr.  Hunt)  became  a  Member  of  that  House  the  petitioners  re» 
minded  him  of  his  former  declaration,  and  called  on  him  to  fulfil  it: 
and,  in  accordance  with  the  pledge  so  given,  he  now  presented  the 
petition.  The  honourable  Member  then  proceeded  to  read  the 
statements  contained  in  the  petition,  which  was  as  follows  :  — 

To  the    honourable  the  Commons  of  the  tJnited  Kingdom  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  in  Earliament  assembled, 

'The  humble  petition  of  the  undersigned  labourers  of  the  parish 
of  Kensington,  in  the  county  of  Middlesex,  and  of  Barnes, 
in  the  county  of  Surrey, 

Most  humbly  Showeth; 

That  your  petitioners  belong  to  a  class  of  the  community  who 
are  destined  by  PROVIDENCE  to  earn  their  daily  bread  by  the 
sweat  of  their  brow. 

That  for  some  time  past,  previous  to  the  winter  of  1827  and  the 
spring  of  1828,  your  petitioners  have  been  enabled  to  command, 
as  wages  for  garden  and  other  labour,  from  2s.  6d.  to  3s.  a  day  ; 
that  with  such  wages,  scanty  and  insufficient  as  they  are  to  pur- 
chase any-thing  other  than  the  necessaries  of  life,  your  humble 
petitioners  have  been,  nevertheless,  able  to  support  themselves, 
their  families,  and  their  children. 

That  owing  to  the  pressure  of  the  times,  consequent  upon  the  enor- 
mous taxes  with  which  this  country  is  burdened,  and  which  fall  so 
heavily  upon  the  labouring  classes  of  the  community,  your  peti- 
tioners have  greatly  experienced  the  want  of  employment ;  but, 
being  naturally  anxious  to  embrace  it  whenever  it  offered  itself, 
your  humble  petitioners  were  compelled,  by  that  necessity  which 
arises  from  the  increasing  wants  of  their  families,  to  accept  of  em- 
ploy under  one  William  Cobbett,  a  nurseryman  and  a  seedsman, 
residing  at  Kensington,  in  the  county  of  Middlesex,  and  also  occu* 


238  Two-penny  Trash; 

pying  what  he  calls  an  "  Indian  corn  farm,"  at  Barn  Elms,  in  the 
county  of  Surrey,  upon  the  following  terras — namely,  21bs.  of  meat, 
141b.  of  bread,  and  ^Ib.  of  cheese  p"er  day  for  each  man!  That  the 
said  William  Cobbett  assigned  to  your  petitioners,  as  a  reason  for 
this  sort  of  payment  of  wages,  *'  his  great  desire  to  keep  your  peti- 
tioners from  the  cursed  chandler's  shop  and  the  big  brewer ;  and 
also  that  every  man  who  worked  for  him  should  have  in  his  belly 
some  bread,  meat,  and  cheese." 

These  were  the  motives  assigned  by  the  said  William  Cobbett  for 
thus  employing  your  humble  petitioners  ;  but  moi^e  false  or  more 
Tiypocintical  motives  never  were  assigned,  as  will  be  seen,  and  of 
Which  your  honourable  House  will  be  perfectly  convinced,  by  the 
following  statement  of  facts  :  to  wit,  the  meat,  consisting  of  the 
tvorst  part  of  had  mutton,  or  cheap  pickled  porky  might  have  been 
bought  by  your  humble  petitioners  at  bd.  a  pound  retail ;  the  bread, 
composed  of  coarse  black  Jilthy  Indian  corn  meal  and  rye  flour,  at 
a  penny  a  pound,  and  stinking  cheese  at  Ad.  a  pound,  making  the 
wages  of  your  petitioners  to  consist  of  food  of  the  following  value 
—namely, 

For  mutton  or  pork 21b.  at  bd.  . .    lOrf. 

For  bread 1^    at  1      ..     If 

For  cheese     §    at  4     , .     2 

Total Is.  \yi.  a  day. : 

Thus  paying  your  humble  petitioners,  in  lieu  of  3s.  or  25.  ^d.  a  day 
iu  money,  paying  them  in  such  disgusting  food,  to  the  utmost  not 
worth  more  than  thirteen-pence  halfpenny  {hangman's  wages), 
-while  the  prime  cost  of  it,  to  the  said  William  Cobbett,  could  not 
possibly  exceed  sixpence  three  farthings. 

Your  honourable  House,  therefore,  will  readily  perceive,  from 
the  foregoing  premises,  the  true  cause  and  selfish  motives  which 
induced  the  said  William  Cobbett  to  adopt  the  infamous  'practice  of 
paying  your  humble  petitioners  in  meat  and  meal,  instead  of  the 
current  coin  of  the  realm. 

With  such  payment  of  wages  your  petitioners  were  left  with  no 
means  whatever  to  purchase  clothes,  fuel,  beer,  soap,  candles, 
lodging,  or  even  tobacco,  now  rendered  so  necessary  by  the  habits 
of  their  lives  ;  and,  in  short,  your  humble  petitioners  were  deprived 
of  the  necessaries  of  life,  or  compelled  ^o  sell,  at  an  immense  loss, 
a  great  portion  of  their  hard-earned,  coarse,  and  unwholesome 
food,  such  as  the  hogs  of  the  said  PFilliam  Cobbett  have  been  fre- 
quently known  to  refuse,  in  order  to  purchase  s'ome  one  of  the  arti- 
cles just  above  enumerated.  -^ 

Your  petitioners,  therefore,  most  earnestly  implore  that  your  S 
honourable  House  will  interpose  between  your  humble  petitioners  '? 
and  all  such  persons  who  may  be  disposed  to  imitate  the  fatal  and 
abominable  example  of  the  s'aid  W  illiam  Cobbett,  and  pass  a  law 
as  will  in  future  protect  them  from  becoming  the  dupes  of  such 
low  cunning,  as  also  from  the  additional  misery  and  degradation 
of  their  station  in  life,  by  preserving  them  from  the  payment  of 
wages  in  food. 


I 


1st  April,  1831.  239 

And  your  petitioners  further  pray,  that  they  may  be  permitted 
to  prove  all  and  every  allegation  contained  in  their  humble  petitioa 
at  the  bar  of  your  honourable  House. 

And  your  petitioners  will  ever  pray. 

The  honourable  Member  proceeded  to  observe  that  a  grosser 
instance  of  the  evils  arising  from  the  truck  system,  perhaps,  had 
never  been  brought  before  the  House ;  and  he  hoped  the  system 
Avould  soon  be  put  an  end  to.  The  individual  referred  to  (Cobbett) 
liad  been  attacking  him  (Mr.  Hunt)  in  his  publications;  but  he 
assured  the  House  he  was  not  instigated  to  present  the  petition  from, 
that  circumstance, — He  had  pledged  himself  to  present  the  petition 
many  months  ago,  before  those  attacks  had  taken  place. 

I  must  have  more  room,  and  it  must  be  a- time  of  less 
public  interest,  for  me  to  give  the  history  of  this  man.     As 
to  the  petition  the  facts  are  these : — That  it  was  not  my 
practice  to  pay  men  in  provisions;   that  I  kept  always  eight 
men  and  boys  in  house  on  a  farm  of  88  acres ;  that  the  men, 
paid  in  food,  were  men  who  had  no  w^ork,  and  who,  in  dead 
of  winter,  mind,  told  me  they  were  starving;  that  food  was 
given  them,  that  their  wives  and  children  might  get  a  part 
of  the  food ;  that  it  was  an  act  of  mere  charity  on  my 
part;  that  the  meat  was  bought  of  Mr.  Scales  and  Mr. 
Mathews  by  the  whole  carcase,  and  the  pork  of  Mr. 
Akerman,  and  was  the  best  that  could  be  had,  at  least  the 
fattest,  as  those  gentlemen  will  testify ;  that  it  is  impossi- 
ble that  the  men  could  have  sold  the  food,  if  it  had  been  so 
had  that  my  hogs  refused  it.     In  short,  it  is  a  string  of 
lies  from  beginning  to  end.     But  how  came  there  to   be 
such   a  petition,   and  who   signed  it,   and  when  was  it 
signed?     Now,    my   friends,  prepare  yourselves   for  real 
"  matchless    black,''       In    revenge    for    my    resolution 
taken  about  eighteen  months  ago,  to  have  nothing  more 
to  do  with  him,  he  hatched   a  conspiracy,  the  detail  of 
which  will,    whenever  it  shall   come  forth,  astound  even 
those  most  accustomed  to  contemplate   deeds    of  villany. 
Having  failed  in  that,  he  resorted  to  this  petition ;  and 
now,  look  at  his  stuff,  taken  from  the  Herald,  and  then 


240       Two-penny  Trash;  1st  April,  1831. 

take  these  facts ;  that  he  (being  unable  to  compose  a  sen- 
tence  himself  fit  for  the  press)  HAD  THE  PETITION 
DRAWN  UP  IN  HIS  OWN  HOUSE;  that  HE  DIC- 
TATED THE  WHOLE  OF  IT  ;  that  HE  SENT  IT  TO 
GET  SIGNED  BY  A  PARCEL  OF  IRISH  PEOPLE, 
who  had  DRINK  GIVEN  THExM  FOR  SIGNING  IT; 
that  he  then  CAUSED  IT  TO  BE  CARRIED  TO  SE- 
VERAL  MEMBERS  OF  PARLIAMENT,  OF  WHOM 
MR.  HOBHOUSE  WAS  ONE;  and  that  all  of  them 
refused  to  have  any-thing  to  do  with  it ;  and  that  I  pledge 
myself  for  the  truth  c?f  these  facts.  There,  my  good  fellows 
of  Preston  :  that's  yonr  cock  ^  that's  your  "DARLING," 
as  Mitchell  called  him  at  Manchester  !  A  greater  fool 
you  might  have  chosen,  for  there  were  the  lunatic  hospitals 
for  you  to  go  to  to. get  a  representative  ;  if  real  life  afforded 
you  no  one  equal  to  him  as  bulhj  and  coward,  Shakspeare 
or  Ben  Jonson  might,  perhaps^  have  given  you  his  match 
in  Pistol  or  Bobadil  ;  but  as  LIAR,  your  choice  sets  at 
defiance  all  approach  towards  equality,  whether  in  real  life, 
or  in  fiction.  The/ault  of  the  choice  is,  however,  not  yours  ; 
you  were  deceived  ;  you  have  done  good,  however  ;  for  you 
have  lifted  the  senseless  and  malignant  thing  up,  that  he 
might  be  seen  by  ally  and  that  was  what  was  wanted.  Such 
a  thing  can  live  only  amidst  troubles  and  strife.  Instinct 
teaches  it  this ;  and  therefore,  this  horrible  thing,  which 
really  ought  not  to  be  called  a  man,  by  whose  presence  in  it 
your  beautiful  town  will  never  again  be  disgraced,  is  raving 
mad  at  the  prospect  of  a  state  of  justice  ai^d  of  harmony y 
which  the  reform  bill  is  so  manifestly  calculated  to  produce. 

Wm.  cobbett. 


Printed  by  "Wm.  Cobbett,  Johnson's  Court,  Fleet  Street. 


No.  XI. 


COBBETT'S 

TWO-PENNY    TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  May,  1831. 


Published  monthly,  sold  at  12s.  Od.  a  hundred,  and  for  300,    taken, 

at  once,  lis. 

TO    THE 

WORKING  PEOPLE  OF  THE  WHOLE  KINGDOM, 
ON  THE  EFFECTS  WHICH  A  PARLIAMENT- 
ARY  REFORM  WILL  HAVE  WITH  REGARD 
TO  THEM. 


Kensington,  1st  May,  1831. 
My  Friends, 

What  good  will  a  Reform  of  the  Parliament  do  you! 
This  is  the  question,  incessantly  put  to  you  by  the  Borough- 
mongers  and  their  tools.  A  very  pertinent  question  it  is,  if 
put  with  a  view  of  obtaining  a  considerate  answer ;  but  this 
is  not  the  case  ;  the  question  means  to  assert  that  it  will  do 
you  no  good.  It  implies  that  it  may  do  somebody  else  some 
good;  but  that  it  will  do  you  no  good.  Now,  I  am  for  no 
"idsionary,  no  fanciful,  no  refined  benefit;  no  mental  advan- 
tage ;  nothing  so  very  fine  that  we  can  neither  see,  hear, 
feel,  nor  touch,  it ;  and,  if  it  could  be  proved  to  me  that  this 
reform  would  bring   no  real,  substantial,  aye,  and  bodily, 

London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street  j 
and  sold  hy  all  Booksellers, 

M 


242  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

good  to  the  millions  of  the  people,  I  should  say,  at  once, 
that  it  was  good  for  nothing.  The  words  rights,  liberty, 
freedom,  and  the  like  ;  the  mere  words,  are  not  worth  a 
straw ;  and  very  frequently  they  serve  as  a  cheat.  What 
is  the  sound  of  liberty  to  a  man  who  is  compelled  to  work 
constantly,  and  who  is  still,  in  spite  of  his  toil,  his  vigilance, 
his  frugality,  half  naked  and  half  starved  !  In  such  a  case 
the  word  liberty  is  abused  :  such  a  man  is  a  slave,  whatever 
he  may  call  himself:  the  name  of  liberty  given  to  his  state, 
only,  by  amusing  him,  tends  to  perpetuate  his  slavery:  none 
are  slaves  so  degraded  as  those  who  are  slaves  in  fact  under 
the  name  of  freedom. 

Therefore,  if  this  Reform  were  to  produce  nothing  but  a 
mere  transfer  of  the  powers  of  choosing  members  of  Parlia- 
ment from  the  Boroughmongers  to  the  people ;  if  it  were 
to  produce  nothing  but  this,  it  would  be  of  no  use  at  all ;  it 
would  be  a  mere  delusion,  played  off  by  knaves,  or  very  ig- 
norant pretenders,  to  amuse  and  impose  upon  fools.  To  vote 
for  members  of  Parliament,  or  any  persons  in  public  power, 
is  apolitical  right ;  but  that  right  is  of  no  real  value,  un- 
less men  are  better  off  in  consequence  of  possessing  it. 
It  is  the  same  with  every  other  endowment.  We  hear 
a  vast  boasting  about  the  light  which  we  possess  now-a- 
days  compared  with  that  which  was  possessed  by  our  fore- 
fathers ;  we  see  a  great  fuss  about  what  is  called  improving 
the  minds  of  the  working  people ;  but  of  what  use  is  this 
new  light  in  the  minds  of  the  working  people,  unless  it  add 
to  their  bodily  enjoyment ;  unless  it  give  them  better  food, 
better  clothing,  and,  of  course,  make  them  more  contented 
and  less  exposed  to  crime  ?  The  first  thing  necessary  to  man 
is  food,  next  raiment,  next  lodging  and  fuel.'  If  we  have 
all  these  in  sufficient  quantity  and  of  good  quality,  he  is 
seldom  led  into  legal  crime,  and  is  much  less  liable  to  the 
commission  of  ihoral  offences,  than  if  he  were  steeped  in  po- 


Ist.May,  J83J..T  243 

yerty,  which  is  the  fruitful  parent  of  misery  and  crime,  and 
has  always  been  such  in  every  country  in  the  world. 

A  great  deal  of  deception  has  been  practised  upon  the 
working  people  under  the  pretence  of  giving  them  edu- 
cation, by  which  the  parties  practising  it  choose  always  to 
mean,  learning  from  books.  Now,  if  this  education-work 
produced  real  benefit  to  the  working  people,  it  would  be  a 
thing  to  be  praised ;  but  the  fact  is,  that,  since  this  work 
was  begun,  the  people  have  regularly  become  poorer  and 
poorer,  crimes  have  regularly  increased,  till  it  now  cost$ 
more  to  punish  and  transport  felons  than  the  whole  of  the 
maintenance  of  the  poor  cost  seventy  years  ago.  Do  I  want 
the  working  people  to  be  "  ignorant V  No:  but  when  I 
see  that  the  education,  as  it  is  impudently  called,  and  that 
misery  and  crimes  all  go  on  increasing  together ;  when  I 
see  that  the  people  have  become  more  miserable,  and  less 
good  in  exact  proportion  as  the  educating  work  has  ex- 
tended, I  must  regard  this  work  as  a  despicable  cheat. 
Besides,  what  is  "  ignorance  V^  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
talk  about  it;  but  what  is  it'i  Is  the  literary  man  to  call 
a  labourer  ignorant  because  the  latter  can  neither  write  nor 
read,  and  because  he  does  not  know  A  from  B  ?  Well, 
then,  is  not  the  labourer  to  call  the  literary  man  ignorant, 
because  he  cannot  hold  plough  or  make  a  hurdle,  and  be- 
cause he  does  not  know  oats  from  barley  when  they  are  six 
inches  high  ?  Is  the  carpenter  to  call  the  shoe-maker  igno- 
rant, because  he  cannot  make  a  chest  of  drawers;  or  the  shoe* 
maker  the  carpenter,  because  he  cannot  make  a  pair  of 
shoes?  The  truth  is  this,  this  talk  about  education  of  the 
people  is  a  piece  of  insolence  arising  out  of  the  stupid  pride 
of  idlers  whose  knowledge  consists  in  books,  or  the  contents 
of  books.  Learning  means  knowledge;  and  a  hedger  that 
understands  hedging  perfectly  is  learned  in  his  profession. 
The  pride  or  vanity  of  literature  despises  all  knowledge  but 

H  2 


244  Two-Penny  Trash; 

that  which  belongs  to  itself;  and  you  shall  frequently  hear 
a  miserable  fribble  of  a  wretch,  who  could  hardly  disen- 
tangle his  carcase  if  clasped  by  a  couple  of  stout  brambles, 
and  who  hardly  knows  a  rough  sheep-dog  from  a  sheep, 
speaking  of  the  "  peasantry  "  as  if  they  were  creatures 
born  without  brains !  •  '^^ 

Oh !  no,  my  friends.  This  education-work  is  generally  a 
sort  of  cheatery,  and,  when  not,  it  is  a  despicable  folly; 
Reading  and  writing  cannot  teach  a  labouring  man  how  to 
perform  any  of  his  duties  of  life.  His  business  is  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  land,  and  of  all  belonging  to  the  land.  By  these  he 
must  live ;  and  all  that  is  wanting  is  a  sufficiency  of  food 
and  raiment,  and  of  all  the  other  things  that  make  life  easy 
and  happy.  If  the  education-work  gave  him  these,  indeed; 
but  we  have  seen  that  it  does  not;  and,  therefore,  nothing  is 
it  worth  to  the  working  man.  Oh !  but  the  people  are  not 
superstitious  as  they  used  to  be.  And  what  of  that  ?  Sup- 
posing it  to  be  so,  what  of  that  ?  The  question  is,  not  what 
iihoughts  they  have  passing  in  their  minds,  but  whether  they 
be  as  well  fed.  and  well  clothed,  and  well  lodged  as  they 
used  to  be  ?  Superstition  is,  in  itself,  a  despicable  thing ;  it 
is  by  no  means  necessary  to  give  them  good  food  and  good 
clothing ;  but,  ifit  were,  I  should  say,  let  them  be  super- 
stitious again  and  for  ever.  In  short,  and  to  state  the  matter 
plainly,  I  would  rather  that  the  people  should  believe  in 
witchcraft^  and  have  plenty  of  bread  and  meat  and  good 
Sunday  coats,  than  that  they  should  laugh  at  witchcraft, 
and  be  fed  on  potatoes  and  covered  with  rags. 

And,  now,  my  friends,  if  I  were  of  opinion  that  this  re- 
form would  make  your  food,  and  clothing,  and  lodging, 
worse  than  they  are  now,  though  in  the  smallest  possible 
degree,  I  should  say  '^  Curse  the  despicable  delusion  V* 
Rotten  boroughs  are  very  odious  things  it  is  quite  mon- 
strous that  a  place  with  no  inhabitants  at  all  should  send 


:  i  1st  May,  1831.    T  245 

tw0  members  to  Parliament,  while  half  a  million  of  men 
assembled  together  send  none  at  all,  and  that  these  mem- 
bers should  be  called  representatives  of  the  people ;  this  is 
monstrous.  This  is  an  insult  to  the  understandings  of  the 
people  ;  this  is  something  calling  for  a  nation's  loud  and  ge- 
neral resentment;  but,  notwithstanding  this,  if  I  believed 
that  the  abolition  of  those  boroughs  would  take  one  single 
ounce  of  bread  from  the  whole  of  you,  I  should  say  let  them 
remain  untouched  for  ever;  and,  if  I  were  not  convinced 
that  the  abolition  of  these  rotten  boroughs  would  add  to 
your  food,  your  raiment,  and  to  those  other  things  which 
tend  to  your  comfort  and  happiness,  I  would  not  step  over 
the  sill  of  the  door  to  cause  their  abolition  ;  but,  it  is  be- 
cause I  know  that  this  change  will  make  you  better  off;  it 
is  because  I  know  that  it  will  make  an  addition  to  the  re- 
ward that  you  receive  for  your  labour,  that  I  have  so  long 
endeavoured  to  cause  it  to  be  adopted ; .  and  it  shall  now  be 
my  endeavour  to  prove  to  you  that  it  will  naturally  produce 
this  good  effect. 

•  What  is  it  that  has  stripped  you  of  your  Sunday  clothes  ? 
What  is  it  that  has  brought  you  down  to  live  upon  pota- 
toes? "What  is  it  that  has  produced  this  sad,  this  dis- 
graceful change  in  England  ?  This  is  what  we  must  first 
inquire  into :  we  must  first  see  the  cause  of  your  misery, 
and  then  inquire  whether  the  reform  will  remove  that  cause. 
As  to  the  reality  of  the  misery,  we  need  say  nothing 
about  that  at  present ;  that  is  now  notorious.  You  are 
better  off  than  you  were ;  but,  even  this  little  better  cannot 
continue  without  producing  utter  ruin  amongst  your  em- 
ployers. We  must  look,  therefore,  now  to  the  cause  of  your 
being  so  poor  and  so  badly  dressed ;  and,  then,  as  I  said 
before,  inquire  whether  Parliamentary  Reform  will  remove 
that  dreadful  cause.  The  cause,  then,  is,  the  WEIGHT 
OF  TAXATION.     You  are  often  told  that  you  pay  no 


246  Two-PENNY  Trash  ; 


taxes:  there  are  men  impudent  enough  to  tell  you  this  J  ■ 
there  are  so  many  hundreds  of  thousands,  who,  directly  or  • 
indirectly,  live   upon  the  taxes,  that  there  never  will  b«' 
wanting  somebody  to  tell  this  brazen  lie  to  the  people.    But^ 
if  there  were  no  tax  upon  the  malt  and  the  hops,  you  would  { 
have  good  ale  for  a  penny  a  quart  of  your  own  brewing;' 
You  would  have  sugar  for  two-pence  halfpenny  a  pound' 
instead  of  seven -pence.     You  would  have  as  much  tobacco 
for  a  penny,  as  you  have  now  for  a  shilling.     Aye,  say  the 
tax-eaters,  but  then  wages  would  be  lower.    Certainly  they* 
might  be  something  lower  ;  but  not  a  tenth  part  would  be 
taken  off  from  them,  while  more  than   one-half  would  be 
taken  off  from  the  burdens  that   you  bear.     Besides  this, 
there  is  no  tax  that  can  be  laid  upon  your  employers  that 
does  not  affect  you.     In  order  that  you  may  be  convinced 
of  this  great  truth,  that  taxation,  in  whatsoever  degree  it 
may  exist,  makes  every-body  poorer  except  the  tax-eaters,* 
I  offer  you  the  following  observations,  to  which  I  beg  you  to 
attend. 

Suppose,  now,  that  the  Isle  of  Wight,  for  instance,  had 
nobody  living  in  it  but  farmers,  smiths,  wheelwrights,  other 
working  people,  and  farmers  and  their  servants.  Suppose- 
that  they  turned  their  wool  and  their  flax  and  their  hides  into 
wearing  apparel,  and  neither  had  commerce  nor  communi- 
cation with  the  rest  of  the  world.  In  this  case  all  would  be 
employed ;  one  would  be  raising  food,  another  making 
clothes,  another  making  or  mending  houses,  and  so  on. 
Suppose  there  to  be  perpetual  peace  and  harmony,  and  that 
no  expense  of  government  was  at  all  required.  Such  a  state 
of  things  can  never  exist  beyond  the  extent  of  a  family  or 
two ;  but  suppose  it  could  be  so.  Then  suppose  that,  from 
some  cause  or  another,  some  man  should  become  more 
powerful  than  any  other  twenty  or  thirty  men.  Suppose,  in 
short,  that  by  gathering  some  violent  men  about  him,  and 


1st  May,  1831.  247 

preparing  some  arms  for  the  purpose,  he  should  be  able  to 
compel  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants  to  keep  him  in  idleness, 
him  and  the  whole  of  his  band.  Is  it  not  manifest  that  all 
the  industrious  people  of  the  Isle  of  Wight  must  be  worse  off 
than  they  were  before  I  Must  not  they  be  the  poorer  ia 
exact  proportion  to  the  quantity  of  their  substance  takea 
away  by  this  man  and  his  band?  He  might  call  that 
which  he  took  away  taxes,  or  call  it  by  some  other  name  ; 
but  still  it  would  be  taking  away  a  part  of  what  was  en- 
joyed before^by  those  who  worked  in  some  way  or  other. 

To  make  the  matter  plainer  if  possible,  suppose  a  little 
community,  consisting  of  ten  men,  each  having  a  wife,  each 
three  children,  and  all  equally  healthy,  equally  sober^  and 
equally  virtuous.  Suppose  them  all  to  be  employed  in  pro- 
viding food  and  other  things  for  one  another;  and  all  of 
them  to  have  a  sufficiency,  arising  from  their  work,  to  keep 
them  well.  Suppose  this  little  community  to  be  so  abomi-* 
nably  foolish^ as  to  make  one  of  the  number  a  gentleman, 
and  to  have  him  and  his  family  to  go  swaggering  about 
doing  no  work ;  and  to  keep  him  in  this  state  by  contribu- 
tions levied  upon  themselves.  What  would  the  consequence 
of  this  foolish  step  be  ?  why,  a  part  of  the  earnings  of  each 
of  the  other  nine  must  be  taken  to  be  given  to  him ;  and, 
to  be  sure,  the  other  nine  would  have  less  of  food  and  of  rai- 
Baent  than  they  had  before.  To  make  the  matter  as  simple 
as  possible,  suppose  there  to  be  no  money  in  the  community ; 
yet  they  must  give  him  and  his  family  victuals  and  drink, 
and  clothing,  ai^  lodging,  and,  in  whatever  proportion  they 
gave  them  to  hini,  they  must  have  so  much  the  less  of  them 
themselves.  Is  it  not,  therefore,  clear  as  day-light,  that  taxes, 
in  whatever  shape  raised,  must  take  from  those  who  pay  the 
taxes  and  who  receive  none  of  them  ? 

When  I  was  born,  the  taxes  in  this  country  amounted  to 
about  eight  millions  a  year.     They  now  amount  to  sixty 


248  Two-penny  Trash; 

millions  a  year:  and,  as  the  poor-rates  then  amounted  to 
a  little  more  than  a  million  a  year,  they  now  amount  to 
seven  millions  and  a  half  a  year ;  so  that  the  working  peo- 
ple of  England  have  become  seven  times  as  poor  as  they 
were  when  I  was  born.  At  that  time  it  was  a  rare  thing  for 
a  person  to  go  to  the  parish  for  rehef.  Mr.  Gawler,  in  a 
parish  lying  under  Weyhill,  in  Hampshire,  told  me  that  his 
father  could  remember  when  there  were  only  seven  persons 
chargeable  to  that  parish;  and,  at  the  time  when  Mr. 
Gawler  told  me  this,  there  were  only  seven  working  men 
in  the  whole  parish  who  were  not  on  the  parish-book.  But, 
is  it  not  clear  as  daylight,  that  if  one  man  come  and  take 
away  another  man's  dinner,  the  latter  must  be  the  poorer 
for  it  ? 

Now,  whence  have  these  taxes  come?  Every  one  of  them 
by  act  of  Parliament :  every  one  of  them  has  been  imposed 
by  an  act  of  Parliament.  No  matter  how  they  are  expended, 
we  know  that  they  impoverish  the  people.  No  matter,  for 
the  argument,  how  they  are  expended ;  but  a  great  matter 
it  is  for  the  fact,  and,  in  order  to  show  that  a  reform  of  the 
Parliament  will,  and  must,  make  these  taxes  cease  to  exist 
in  any  amount  beyond  that  which  is  absolutely  necessary  to 
the  support  of  the  Government;  that  is  to  say,  to  the  main- 
tenance of  the  peace,  to  the  protection  of  property  and  life, 
and  to  the  maintenance  of  the  just  rights  of  the  kingdom. 
For  these  purposes  it  is  the  duty,  and  indeed  the  interest,  of 
all  to  contribute  a  share  of  our  incomes  or  our  earnings  in 
proportion  to  our  ability  to  contribute.  But,  for  no  pur- 
poses beyond  these ;  and  for  no  purpose  beyond  these  will 
a  reformed  Parliament  compel  us  to  contribute ;  for,  if  it 
were,  the  Reform  would  be  a  thing  to  be  despised  instead 
of  being  sought  for  w^ith  all  the  zeal  and  all  the  energy 
that  are  now  in  motion  for  the  attainment  of  that  great 
object. 


1st  May,  183L  249 

. .  The  great  business  of  Government  is  to  provide  for  the 
happiness  of  the  people  that  live  under  that  government.  If 
it  do  provide  for  that  happiness  ;  if  it  take  care  that  every 
man  shall  quietly  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  labour  ;  if  it  take 
care  that  industry  shall  have  its  due  reward ;  that  the  idle 
shall  not  fatten  upon  the  toil  of  the  industrious  ;  and  that, 
in  short,  all  good  people  have  as  easy  and  comfortable  lives 
as  they  can  enjoy ;  if  it  do  these  things,  it  is  of  very  little 
consequence  what  name  the  government  bears,  what  is  the 
form  of  it,  or  what  it  be  called  by  any  body  that  chooses  to 
speak  of  it.  If,  as  I  said  above,  a  parliament  with  rottea 
boroughs,  w^ould  cause  these  excellent  effects  to  take  place, 
I  should  say  nothing  against  rotten  boroughs ;  but  we  have 
seen  that  it  produces  the  contrary  effects  ;  we  have  seen  that 
it  produces  misery  unspeakable ;  therefore,  we  wish  it  to  be 
changed :  therefore,  we  want  that  which  is  justly  called  a 
Reform  of  the  Parliament. 

It  is  said  by  many  persons  that  nojie  of  the  taxes  can  be 
taken  off.  Nay,  the  present  ministers  seem  to  say  as 
much  themselves  ;  or,  they  say,  at  least,  that  if  some  taxes 
be  taken  off,  others  must  be  put  on  ;  that,  if  the  tax  be  takea 
off  the  candles,  there  must  be  a  tax  put  upon  steam-boats, 
or  upon  something  else.  If  the  people  believed  this,  not  a 
hand  or  tongue  would  they  stir  for  Parliamentary  Reform. 
Mr.  Alderman  Wood,  how.ever,  declared,  the  other  day, 
in  the  Guildhall  of  London,  that  two  millions  out  of  three 
might  be  saved  in  the  expenses  of  the  civil  department  of 
the  Government.  Let  me  state  an  instance  of  expenditure 
to  you.  There  was  a  pension  given  to  one  Burke  in  the 
year  1795.  The  amount  was  two  thousand  five  hundred 
pounds  a  year,  for  which  he  had  never  done  any- thing.  This 
pension  was  granted  for  his  life,  and  for  three  other  lives, 
one  of  which  was  then  a  very  young  life  indeed ;  so  that, 
when  he  died,  which  was  thirty-one  years  ago,  he  left  this 


250  Two-penny  Trash; 

pension  to  relations^  and  it  has  since  been  paid  to  his  exe- 
cutors, or  their  descendants,  and  is  so  paid  to  this  hour. 
This  pension,  which,  observe,  is  paid  out  of  the  taxes,  ea«^ 
abled  this  Burke  to  bequeath  a  portion  of  the  taxes  to 
Jiis  relations  !  On  account  of  this  pension,  about  ninety- 
seven  thousand  pounds  have  aheady  been  paid  out  of  the 
taxes,  and,  in  great  part,  paid  by  the  labouring  people,  in 
the  tax  on  their  malt,  hops,  soap,  candles,  and  tobacco,  and 
all  other  necessaries  of  life.  Two  of  the  lives  for  which  thid 
pension  was  granted  still  exist;  namely.  Lord  Althorp 
and  Lord  Grey's  brother,  the  Dean ;  so  that  this  pension 
may  continue  to  be  paid  out  of  the  labour  of  the  people  for 
thirty  years  to  come  ! 

Now,  my  friends,  will  a  reformed  Parliament  ever  vote,  even 
for  one  single  year,  the  money  wherewith  to  pay  this  pension  ? 
If  I  thought  it  would,  I  should  say,  ^^  Curse  the  miserable 
delusion  of  Parliamentary  Reform  !'^  I  give  you  this  merely 
as  a  specimen,  merely  as  a  sample,  merely  as  one  grain  of 
a  whole  sack  of  the  same  sort.  No  other  piece  of  expendi- 
ture is  precisely  like  this,  to  be  sure  ;  but  millions  upon  mil- 
lions and  tens  of  millions  expended  upon  grounds  not  a  bit 
more  just  than  this;  and  this  is  my  settled  opinion  after 
having  the  subject  before  me  for  nearly  thirty  years. 

Then,  again,  as  to  country  matters.  Is  it  to  be  believed 
that  a  reformed  Parliament  will  adopt  no  measure  with 
regard  to  tithes  ?  Is  it  to  be  believed  that  it  will  pay  no  at- 
tention to  the  arguments  offered  by  me  in  Two-penny  Trash, 
No.  7  ?  Is  it  to  be  believed  that  it  will  suffer  the  income 
of  three  or  four  livings  to  be  swallowed  up  by  one  man, 
taken  away  out  of  the  parishes,  and  spent  in  London,  or 
very  likely  at  Paris  or  at  Rome,  while  the  religious  duties 
of  the  parish  are  left  to  be  performed  by  a  miserable  curate  ? 
Is  this  to  be  believed  ?  If  I  believed  it,  I  should  despise  th^ 
man  that  talked  to  me  of  Parliamentary  Reform.     I  should 


1st  May,  1831.  251 

call  such  a  man  an  impostor;  and,  if  he  were  a  minister,  I 
should  say  that  he  had  conjured  up  the  miserable  delusion 
in  order  to  keep  his  own  place,  and  to  have  an  opportunity  of 
pillaging  the  people ;  I  should  say  that  he  was  still  mare 
hateful  than  the  owner  of  a  rotten  borough,  and  should  an- 
ticipate with  delight  the  hour  of  his  overthrow,  instead  of 
thanking  him  for  his  plans  of  reform. 

Oh^  no,  my  friends.  A  reformed  Parliament  will  produce 
great  changes  indeed :  it  will  look  into  the  several  items  of 
expenditure ;  it  will  soon  discover  that  which  the  present 
ministers  have  been  unable  as  yet  to  discover  ^  namely,  that 
the  present  taxes  are  not  required,  and  that  they  need  not 
be  granted :  it  will  soon  discover  that  an  army  of  a  hun- 
dred thousand  men  can  never  be  necessary  in  a  time  of  pro- 
found peace ;  and,  in  short,  it  will  discover  the  means  of  re- 
ducing the  expenditure  to  that  amount  at  which  it  stood 
when  I  was  a  boy.  The  very  mention  of  this,  while  it  will 
make  you  gay  in  the  anticipation  of  a  return  of  meat  and 
bread,  instead  of  potatoes,  will  make  those  who  live  upon 
the  taxes,  those  endless  swarms  of  idlers,  who  live  upon  the 
labour  of  others,  tremble  in  their  shoes ;  for,  to  those  who 
have  been  accustomed  to  live  upon  the  labour  of  others,  no 
thought  is  so  horrible  as  that  of  their  being  compelled  to 
work  for  their  own  living.  Such  people  look  upon  the  in- 
dustrious part  of  mankind  as  having  been  made  to  work  for 
them ;  just  as  we  look  upon  dogs  as  having  been  made  to 
keep  our  sheep,  and  upon  horses  as  having  been  made  to 
draw  our  wagons  or  carts.  These  insolent  'wretches  call 
you  ^^  the  peasantry  y*  or  the  "  'population  ;"  they  never 
call  you  the  people.  The  word  people  is  quite  out  of  use 
with  them.  They  always  speak  of  you  as  we  speak  of  the 
stock  upon  a  farm,  which  we  think  ourselves  justified  in 
treating  in  any  manner  that  we  please.  A  reform  of  the 
Parliament,  by  compelling  these  people  to  earn  their  own 


252  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

bread  in  some  way  or  another,  will  make  them  cease  to  talk 
about  peasantry  and  'population.  They  will  once  more 
discover  that  you  are  people  ;  and  when  they  begin  to^sweat 
a  little  themselves,  they  will  discover  that  hard  labour  is 
worthy  of  good  food  and  good  raiment.  If  you  could  all  of 
you  come  to  London,  and  see  the  fine  carriages  in  Hyde 
Park  of  a  fine  Sunday;  if  you  could  see  the  beautiful 
horseSj  the  finely- dressed  coachmen  and  footmen,  pannels  of 
the  carriages  shining  enough  to  put  your  eyes  out ;  if  you 
could  come  and  see  all  these,  how  surprised  you  would  be  ; 
how  little  you  would  seem  to  yourselves !  with  silks  and 
cambrics  in  your  eyes,  you  would  be  ashamed  to  look  down 
upon  your  own  bodies,  covered  with  your  miserable  smock- 
frocks.  If  any  of  the  gods  or  goddesses  who  sit  within  the 
carriages  were  to  condescend  to  cast  a  look  at  you,  how 
ready  you  would  be  to  snatch  oflf  your  hats  !  Now,  my  good 
fellows,  do  see  this  matter  in  its  true  light.  Nineteen  twen- 
tieths, and  perhaps  ninety-nine  hundredths,  of  all  this  daz- 
zling finery  has  been  taken  out  of  your  labour ;  for,  even 
those  of  you  who  have  been  making  hedges  and  ditches 
have  been  paying  the  taxes,  which,  being  given  to  these 
people,  enable  them  to  purchase  all  these  fineries  ;  and, 
perhaps,  one  single  equipage,  amongst  the  many  that  you 
behold,  has  been  the  cause  of  filling  a  hamlet  or  a  \illage 
with  beggary  and  misery. 

It  is  the  great  business,  it  is  the  greatest  of  all  the  affairs 
of  a  government,  to  prevent  this  cruel  inequality.  Out  of 
this  inequality  arise  all  the  suffering?,  all  the  immoralities, 
all  the  crimes,  that  now  disgrace  this  country.  And  am  I  to 
believe  that  a  reformed  Parliament  will  suffer  this  great  and 
crying  evil  to  remain  uncorrected  ?  If  I  cculd  believe  this 
possible,  I  should  think  myself  the  greatest  of  deceivers  in 
calling  upon  you  to  support  this  reform.  I  have  observed 
before,  and  I  beseech  you  to  attend  to  it,  that  the  words 


.  1st  May,  183].  2.53 

liberty,  freedom,  rights,  and  the  rest  of  the  catalogue, 
which  hypocritical  knaves  send  rolling  off  the  tongue,  are 
worth  nothing  at  all :  it  is  things  that  we  want.  Those 
men  who  make  a  fuss  about  sorts  of  government,  and  who 
tell  us  about  the  good  things  which  arise  from  the  repub* 
^ican  government  of  America,  deceive  themselves,  or  deceive 
others.  It  is  not  because  the  government  is  republican,  but 
because  it  is  cheap ;  and  it  is  cheap,  not  because  it  is  re- 
publican, but  because  the  people  choose  those  who  make  the 
laws  and  vote  the  taxes.  If  the  President  of  America  were 
called  King  of  America,  instead  of  being  called  President, 
it  w^ould  be  of  no  consequence  to  the  people,  if  the  King 
cost  no  more  than  the  President  now  costs.  Nothing  is 
worth  looking  after;  nothing  is  worth  talking  about  but  the 
cost ;  because  it  is  this  that  comes  and  takes  the  dinner  from 
the  labourer,  and  that  takes  the  coat  from  his  back. 

We  have  had,  during  this  last  winter,  a  clear  proof  that 
we  never  can  have  relief  except  through  the  means  of  a  Re- 
form in  Parliament.  During  the  winter  before.  Sir  James 
Graham  proved  that  113  of  the  aristocracy  of  England 
received  out  of  the  taxes  six  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
pounds  a  year,  a  sum  equal  in  amount  to  a  years  poor- 
rates  of  the  five  counties  of  Bedford,  Berks,  BuckSy 
Cambridge^  and  Cumberland!  Think  of  that,  working 
people  of  England  !  Think  of  that !  I  have  taken  the  first 
five  counties  on  the  alphabetical  list.  What  a  noise,  what 
a  worrying,  what  bitter  complainings  do  we  hear  from  this 
aristocracy  about  the  '^  drain''  which  the  poor-rates  cause 
from  their  estates!  What  an  everlasting  outcry  about  the 
weight  of  these  poor-rates  !  Select  Vestries,  assistant  over- 
seers, Sturges  Bourne's  Bills,  checking  of  marriages 
amongst  the  working  people,  one  tyrant  forbidding  them  to 
marry  till  after  they  are  thirty  years  of  age,  others  causing 
husbands  to  be  kept  from  their  waives  to  prevent  them  from 


254  Two-penny  Trash; 

breeding,  and  there  comes  the  young  and  lofty  Northumbrian, 
with  a  plan  for  getting  the  working-people  out  of  the  coun- 
try in  order  to  lessen  their  numbers  and  in  order  to  lower 
the  monstrous  amount  of  the  poor-rates :  all  this  going  for- 
ward while  113  of  this  aristocracy  swallow  up  more  thaa 
is  given  to  relieve  the  poor  of  five  counties  of  England,  in- 
cluding church-rates,  highway-rates,  and  county-rates! 
These  hundred  and  thirteen  men  receive  out  of  the  taxes 
a  sum  equal  to  the  RENT,  not  the  rates,  but  the  rent,  of 
all  the  lands,  houses,  roads,  canals,  and  every-thing  else  in 
either  of  the  counties  of  Berks,  Bucks,  Cambridge,  Dorset, 
Hereford,  or  Hertford ;  and  they  receive  as  much  as  the 
amount  of  the  rental  of  Bedfordshire  and  Huntingdonshire 
put  together,  and  as  much  as  the  rental  of  the  three 
counties  of  Monmouth,  Rutland,  and  Westmorland  I  Here  is 
a  monstrous  thing !  Here  are  113  men  swallowing  up  all  this 
rental,  which  amount  is  taken  out  of  the  taxes,  mind ;  yet 
no  one  proposes  a  law  to  put  an  end  to  this  enormous  evil. 

But,  Sir  J  A  M  ES  G  R  A  H  A  M  is  now  a  Cabinet  Minis  ter  !  He 
has  surely  proposed  some  law  to  put  an  end  to  this  I     Not  a 
word  about  the  matter  !     Not  a  syllable  about  the  matter  I 
There  are  the  hundred  and  thirteen  pretty  aristocrats,  with 
their  six  hundred  andjfifty  thousand  pounds  a  year'paid  out  of 
the  fruit  of  the  labour  of  the  people,  and  Sir  James  Gra- 
ham, who  received  so  many  scores  of  addresses  thanking  him 
for  this  exposure,  comes  into  power,  pockets  his  salary  as 
First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  and  says  not  a  single  word  about 
the   one  hundred   and  thirteen  men  who   receive   the  six 
hundred  and   fifty  thousand  pounds  a  year.     Tbe  English 
Bishops  receive  more  probably  than  the  poor-rates  of  four 
counties  first  upon  the  alphabetical  list.     Now,  if  a  reformed 
Parliament  can  be  thought  capable  of  leaving  these  things 
untouched,  a  reformed  Parliament  would  be  the  greatest 
delusion  that  ever  was  palmed  upon  mankind.     No,  my 


1st  Mat,  1831.  255 

friends,  a  reformed  Parliament  will  put  these  matters  to 
rights;  and,  therefore,  it  is  the  duty  of  us  all  to  labour 
earnestly  for  the  obtaining  of  such  a  Parliament.  Such  a 
Parliament  would,  in  a  short  time,  suffer  us  to  brew  our  beer 
'with  malt  and  hops  not  taxed ;  suffer  us  to  have  our  sugar 
•at  half  the  present  price ;  suffer  us,  in  short,  to  be  well  off, 
and  suffer  us  to  remain  quietly  in  our  country  without  pes- 
tering us  with  projects  to  get  us  into  a  foreign  land.  There- 
fore, every  exertion  in  our  power,  whatever  the  extent  of 
that  power  may  be,  and,  in  whatever  way  it  can  legally  be 
employed,  ought  to  be  made  use  of  in  order  to  cause  this 
reform  to  be  effected.  Every  man,  however  poor,  may  pos- 
sess some  degree  of  influence,  and  be  that  influence  what  it 
may,  he  ought  to  exert  it.  If  a  man  have  not  a  vote  him- 
self^ some  relation  may  have  a  vote,  or  some  friend ;  and  he 
should  interfere  with  these  as  far  as  he  lawfully  can,  and 
urge  them  to  vote  for  nobody  who  will  not  vote  for  a  Parlia- 
mentary Reform.  • 

This  is  my  advice  to  you,  my  friends :  there  is  no  hope  of 
seeing  any  amendment  in  the  country  imtil  this  reform  be 
effected:  no  change  short  of  this  can  do  any  good.  The 
time  for  making  exertions  will  soon  be  gone  by  ;  and  let  no 
man  have  to  reproach  himself  with  having  neglected  his 
duty. 

With  the  most  anxious  wishes  for  your  welfare,  and  with 
great  hopes  of  seeing  you  once  more  well  off, 

'    I  remain  your  faithful  friend, 

Wm.  COBBETT. 

LIBERAL  WHIG  PROSECUTION. 

29th  yfyrzL 
When  this  prosecution  was  commenced  against  me  by 
the  sly  mode  of  a  Bill  of  Indictment  at  the  Old  Bailey, 
where  the  Grand  Jury  cannot,  from  the  nature  af  things, 


256  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

inquire  into  any- thing  further  than  the  fact  of  publication^ 
there  was  hardly  a  man  amongst  the  public  who  had  the 
smallest  idea  that  this  prosecution,  and  particularly  by  such 
an  indirect  course,  had  been  instituted  by  the  Government, 
Though  mightily  well-disposed,  from  long  experience,  to 
suspect  every-thing  done  by  the  Whigs,  I  myself  did  not  be- 
lieve that  such  a  thing  could  have  originated  with  men  exercis- 
ing the  powers  of  the  Government ;  and  I  expressed  myself 
to  this  eflfect  at  the  time.  I  soon  found,  however,  that  we 
were  all  deceived  in  this  respect ;  and  that  the  prosecution 
had  been  commenced  by  the  Government  very  soon  after 
the  attack  made  upon  me  by  Trevor  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. The  prosecuting  steps  have  regularly  proceeded 
on ;  and  since  I  wrote  the  former  part  of  this  paper y 
and,  indeed,  this  very  moment  (Wednesday  evening),  I  have 
received  regular  notice  of  trial  for  the  sittings  after  term  ; 
and  therefore,  as  the  sittings  begin  on  the  11th  of  May,  the 
trial  will  take  place  on  the  llth^  12th,  or  13th  of  that 
month,  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  at  Guildhall,  in  the 
City  of  London,  on  w^hich  occasion,  God  granting  me  life 
and  health,  I  will  meet,  before  the  Chief  Justice  and  a 
Special  Jury,  which  will  be  called  for  by  the  Attorney- 
General;  I  will  meet  the  Attorney -General  and  all  his  sup- 
porters and  abettors.  It  was  not,  therefore,  without  reason 
that  I,  in  my  last  Register,  dissented  from  the  opinion 
of  Dr.  Black,  that  to  vote  for  the  opponents  of  this 
Ministry,  was  to  '^  vote  against  the  liberty  of  the  press. ^^ 
Just  twenty  years  I  have  been  wTiting  and  publishing  under 
a  series  of  Tory  Ministers  and  Tory  Attorney- Generals,  the 
much-complained-of  Scarlett  not  excepted  :  during  these 
twenty  years  I  have  never  heard  even  the  whisper  of  a 
Government  prosecution  against  me ;  but  a  Whig  Ministry 
had  not  been  in  power  much  more  than  twenty  days, 
before  such  prosecution  began  to  be  plotted,  and  under 


1st  May,  1831.  257 

what  circumstances,  in  what  manner,  and  with  what  mani- 
fest motives,  I  shall,  I  trust,  be  able  amply  to  show  in  my 
defence  upon  this  trial ;  for  defence  it  shall  be,  without  the 
retracting,  or  endeavouring  to  soften,  one  single  word  or 
syllable.  I  am  conscious  that  I  bave  done  nothing  but  my 
bare  duty ;  for  doing  that,  the  destruction  of  my  mind  or 
body,  or  both,  is  now  meditated  ;  but,  with  the  blessing  of 
God,  and  with  the  integrity  of  my  countrymen  to  support 
me,  I  trust  that,  in  this  case,  as  well  as  in  the  former,  those 
who  premeditate  my  destruction  will  fail  in  their  object.  It 
was  during  the  general  blaze  of  the  illuminations  of  last 
night  (I  am  writing  this  on  Thursday  morning)  that  I 
received  this  notice  of  trial,  while  I  was  sitting  in  a  room 
behind  the  curtains  drawn  to  weaken  the  blaze  of  the  illu- 
mination of  my  own  windows.  It  was  at  this  moment, 
and  while  I  heard  the  rejoicings  in  the  street,  that  this 
proof  of  Ministerial  malignity  was  put  into  my  hand. 
•*  What!''  exclaimed  I  to  myself,  ^*  can  these  men,  who 
**  well  know  that  I  have  done  more  towards  the  prddu- 
"  cing  this  event  than  they  have ;  that  I  have  done  more  thaa 
any  hundred  or  thousand  men  to  produce  this  event,  his 
Majesty  only  excepted ;  can  these  men  really  rejoice  in 
*^  their  hearts  at  this  event!'*  However,  T  will  not  pur- 
sue these  observations  further  at  present :  but  I  caunot  refrain 
from  observing,  that  the  accusations  against  Peei  for  his 
sentiment  on  ^^  Journalism-/*  that  these  attacks  upon  him 
on  this  account,  ought  to  be  a  little  moderated  by  those  who 
call  upon  us  to  vote  in  favour  of  this  liberal  Ministry.  I 
cannot  help  observing,  too,  that  this  present  Attorney-Gene- 
ral, my  prosecutor,  talked  the  other  night  about  the  tyranny 
of  the  press  ;  so  that,  while  we  adhere  to  the  bill,  while  we 
adhere  to  the  cause  of  the  people,  let  us  be  careful  how  we 
sing  up  the  praises  of  those  who  make  this  sort  of  display  of 
what  is  called  their  liberaUty.     The  Attorney-General  will 


€1 


258  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

have  to  present  himself,  in  a  few  days,  before  the  people  of 
Nottingham  as  the  friend  of  liberty ^  as  the  advocate  of  a 
free  press,  as  the  advocate  of  Parliamentary  Reform,  at 
the   very    moment    when    he    will    be    noting    his    brief, 
perhaps,  the  fee  upon  which  brief  the  people  of  Notting- 
ham   and    I    myself    shall    have    to    pay    a    part,   and 
which   brief   will  contain    the  regularly -laid  plan  for  the 
destruction  of  the  man  to  whom  the  nation  ascribes,  in  great 
part,  the  measure  for  the  accomplishment  of  which  we  are 
now  called  upon  to  struggle.    I  will  only  add,  that  as  I  always 
kave  made,  so  I  shall  now  make,  my  own  private  feelings  yield 
to  what  I  deem  the  good  of  my  country.     It  is  just,  it  is  ne- 
cessary, it  is  every  way  proper,  that  my  readers  should  be 
informed  of  the  proceedings  manifestly  aimed  at  my  health 
and  life.     These  readers  are  numerous ;   they  are  to  be 
found  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom ;  they  are  warmly  at- 
tached to  me ;  they  will  boil  with  resentment  at  this  pro- 
ceeding ;  but  I  most  solemnly  exhort  them  not  to  sufifer  their 
feelings  on  this  account  to  slacken  their  efforts  in  the  small- 
est degree  during  the  ensuing  elections ;  but  to  do  every- 
thing in  their  power  in  order  to  ensure  success  16  the  great 
measure  brought  in  by  men  who  meditate  my  destruction. 
Upon  this  principle  I  shall  act  myself.     Compelled  by  this 
proceeding  to  remain  in  London,  I  cannot  do  a  tenth  part  of 
what  I  could  do,  were  it  in  my  power  to  go  into  the  country 
at  this  time.     I  can  only  perform  the  duty  of  a  liveryman 
of  London  ;   and,  laying  aside  my  great  dislike  to  one  of  the 
four   Aldermen,  I  shall,  if  there  be  any  opposition,  vote  for 
the  whole  four,  as  1  exhort  every  liveryman  to  do,  be  his 
personal  or  political  likings  or  dislikings  what  theymay.     It 
is  the  measure,  and  not  the  men,  which  I  wish  to  support. 
So  that  the  measure  be  carried,  I  care  not  who  is  the  in- 
strument ;  and  this  has  been  my  tone  from  the  beginning  of 
this  discussion  to  the  present  hour ;  but  I  never  can  hold  my 


.  J  ST  May,  1831.  259 

tongue,  I  never  can  lay  down  my  pen,  while  we  are  called 
upon  to  vote  for  these  men  in  order  to  secure  the  liberty  of 
the  press.  When  the  public  look  at  the  thing  which  they  call 
a  libel;  when  the  public  behold  what  publications  they 
suffer  to  pass  without  any  notice  at  all ;  they  will  be  quite 
astonished  at  this  proceeding.  And  it  will  be  my  duty,  a 
duty  which  I  will  not  fail  to  perform  if  I  have  life  and 
health,  to  remove  this  astonishment  out  of  the  minds  of  that 
public.  Here  I  quit  the  subject  for  the  present,  notifying 
to  my  readers  that  I  shall  be  quite  ready  to  meet  the 
'*  liberal  "  Whig  Attorney- General  when  he  shall  retura 
from  his  constituents  of  Nottingham,  swelling  with  the  de- 
termination to  destroy  me  in  property,  health  or  life,  and, 
as  I  dare  say  he  hopes,  in  all  three. 

Wm,  COBBETT. 

Postscript.— It  occurs  to  me  to  point  out  to  my  readers 
that  which  they  will  deem  very  curious;  They  know  that 
this  prosecution  was,  in  fact,  begun  by  Arthur  Trevor, 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  There  were  speech  after  speech 
spread  all  about  the  country,  containing  garbled  extracts  and 
malignant  interpretations.  Now,  this  Trevor,  who  sat  for 
the  borough  of  New  Romney,  vacated  his  seat  to  let  in  Sir 
Roger  Gresley,  who  could  not  return  to  Durham ;  and 
Trevor  went  to  Durham  himself,  to  get  elected  in  Gres- 
ley's  place,  supported  in  both  places  by  the  Marquis  of  Lon"- 
donderry,  and  avowing  his  hostility  to  the  Reform  Bill, 
The  Ministers  know  this  very  well,  yet  these  sincere  reformers 
are  pushing  on,  with  all  their  might,  the  prosecution  begun 
by  this  very  Trevor.  This  is  a  very  curious  circumstance, 
or  rather  combination  of  circumstances,  and  as  such  I  leave 
it  to  the  reflections  of  my  readers.  At  any  rate,  I  am  de* 
termined  to  make  a  stand  for  the  real  liberty  of  the  press. 


260  Two-PENNy  Trash; 


TO  THE  ;^ 

CONDUCTORS  OF  THE  PARIS  JOURNALS.      - 

On  the  Prosecution  now  carrying  on  by  theWhig  Ministnj 
of  England  against  Mr.  Cobbett.  b 

Kensingtoriy  1st  May,  1831. 
Gentlemex, 

Whex  you  first  heard  of  the  above  prosecution  you 
were  surprised,  and  one  or  more  of  you  observed,  that  yoii 
should  narrowly  watch  the  progress  of  it ;  for  that  it  ap*^ 
peared  to  be  a  *^  very  curious  thing,  that  a  REFORMING 
^*  Ministry  should  endeavour  to  crush  the  most  able  sup-*- 
*'  porter  of  the  cause  of  Reform,*'     How  I  laughed,  and 
how  my  readers  laughed,  when  we  read  this !     How  little, 
alas!  do  you  know  of  this  '*  reforming  Ministiy  !  "     If  I 
were  at  Paris  for  a  couple  of  days,  and  had  you  all  assem- 
bled together  for  three  hours  in  each  day,  and  you  could  un»; 
derstand  English  (for  in  no  other  language  could  justice^.' 
nor  half  justice,  be  done  to  the  subject),   I  would  give  you 
matter  for  laughter  for  the  rest  of  your  lives,  by  describing 
to  you  the  motives,  the  real  conduct,  and  the  present  cruel 
dilemma,  of  this   "  reforming  Ministry  J^      According  to 
our  laws  and  usages,  a  man  by  whom  a  woman  is  in  the 
family  way  {enceinte)  is,  in  certain    cases,  compelled  to 
marry  her,  and  then  he  is  said  to  be  led  to  the  church  in  a 
halter.     Yet,  he,  when  in  the  church,  promises  and  vows 
that  he  will  love  and  cherish  the  bride  to  the  end  of  their 
days  !     Just  such  a  marriage  is  now  taking  place  between 
the  Whig  Ministry  and  Reform ;  /  have  very  kindly  fur^ 
nished  the  halter  for  the   happy  occasion :  and  they  are 
showing  their  gratitude  by  this  prosecution,  which   will 
now  no  longer  appear  to  you  so  very  surprising  ! 


^Z^l  1st  May,  1831.  261 

The  trial  will  take  place,  at  the  Guildhall  of  the  City  of 
London,  on  the  11th,  12th,  or  13th  of  this  month.  It  is, 
though  the  person  prosecuted  is  a  private  individual,  a 
really  important  matter.  It  is  not  at  all  a  question  of 
Ubelor  no  libel;  but  a  question  of  motives  of  this  Minis'^ 
try  ;  a  question  of  character  with  them  ;  a  question  that 
may  affect  the  durability  of  their  power,  and,  perhaps, 
affect  also  the  result  of  their  present  struggle  against  their 
political  opponents.  I  will  take  care  that  you  shall  have  a 
full  account  of  all  that  shall  take  place  at  this  trial,  which, 
before  it  be  done  with,  will  throw  great  light  upon  the 
«tate  in  which  we  are  as  to  political  parties  and  their  views. 
In  the  meanwhile  I  beg  you  not  to  be  deceived  hy  the  puffs 
in  our  newspapers  about  this  "  liheraV  Ministry.  They 
are  the  mere  instruments,  against  their  will,  of  a  measure 
that  must,  in  the  end,  give  us  real  liberty  of  the  press ;  but 
they  are  the  very  greatest  enemies  of  that  liberty,  the  most 
bitter  and .  malignant  enemies  of  it,  that  the  country  has 
known  for  many  years.  Pray  be  not  amused  with  names. 
Do  not  believe  that  Lord  Brougham  is  the  friend  of  the 
liberty  of  the  press^  when  you  see  him  endeavouring  to  de* 
stroy  it.  Do  not  believe  this,  though  half  a  score  bribed 
newspapers  say  it.  Judge  of  the  man  by  his  acts.  The 
Attorney-General  is,  observe,  only  a  mere  instrument 
in  the  hands  of  Brougham  and  his  brother  Ministers. 

You  will  not  seethe  Morning  Chronicle,  that"  li^ 
beral "  journal,  find  fault  with  this  prosecution  ;  nay,  you 
need  not  be  much  surprised,  if  you  see  it  endeavour  to  de* 
fend  it!  This  paper  is  now  devoted  to  Brougham,  md 
would  gladly  lend  its  hand  to  reduce  me  to  silence.  I 
pray  you  to  have  your  eye  upon  these  things.  In  due  time, 
I  will  place  this  Brougham  and  his  colleagues  before  all 
Europe  in  their  proper  light.  Always,  however,  bear  this 
in  mind ;  that  the  gi^eat  measure  which  they  have  pro- 


262  Two-penny  Trash;  Imt  May,  1831. 

posed,  they  abhor  in  their  hearts,  and  lliat  while  they  are 
receiving  support,  they  curse  their  supporters.  This  is  my 
"firm  conviction,  a  conviction  in  which  the  main  part  of  well- 
informed  people  fully  participate ;  and  circumstances  which 
hare  taken  place  since  the  dissolution  of  the  Parliament, 
and  which  circumstances  will  be  universally  known  before  it 
be  long,  will  make  every  man  of  common  sense  of  the  same 
opinion.  What  a  charming  dilemma  \  They  are  striving 
with  all  their  might,  they  are  working  as  if  for  their  lives, 
to  accomplish  a  thing  which  they  abhor  !  Such  is  a  most 
appropriate  punishment  of  hypocrisy. 

I  am,  Gentlemen, 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 
Wm.  COBBETT. 

Mr,  Cobbett's  List  of  Books, 

N.  B.  All  the  Books  undermentioned ,  are  published  at  No,  11,  Bolt- 
court.  Fleet-street,  London  ;  and  are  to  he  had  of  all  the  Book' 
sellers  in  the  Kingdom, 

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MR.  JAMES  COBBETT'S  ITALIAN  GRAMMAR  (Price  6s.)  ; 
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[Printed  by  VVui.  Cobbett,  J  ohnson's-court,  Fleet-street. 


No.  XJI. 


COBBETT'S 

TWO-PENNY    TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  Jane^  1831. 


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at  once,  lis. 


SURPLUS   POPULATION: 

A    COMEDY, 

IN   THRKB    ACTS. 


BY  WILLIAM  COBBETT. 


THE  CHARACTERS. 


MEN. 

Sir  Gripe  Gkindum,  of  Grindum   Hall,  in  the  county  of  Grin- 
duni,  Baronet. 

Peter  Thimble,  Esq.,  a  ^reat  Anti-Population  Philosopher. 

Farmer  Stiles. 
.  Tom  Stiles,  Nephevr  of  Farmer  Stiles. 

Last,  the  Village  Shoe-maker. 

Dick  Hazle,  Servant  to  Stiles. 

Barebone,  Man-of-alUwork  to  Sir  Gripe. 

Tom  Birch,  Brother  of  Betsy  Birch. 

Jack  Harrow,  Ned  Maple,  and  other  Country  Fellows. 

Bludgeon,  Guzzle,  and  Slang,  three  London  Bullies. 
^  Waiter,  Boys,  &c. 

women, 

Betsy  Birch,  going  to  be  married  to  Dick  Hazle. 

Mrs.  Birch,  her  Mother,  who  is  a  Widow. 

Mrs.  Stiles,  Wife  of  the  Farmer. 

Patty  Primrose,  Mary  Violet,  and  other  Country  Girls. 

scene, 
77ie  Fillage  of  Nestbed,  in  the  County  of  Grindum. 

J^ONDON  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street, 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers.  - .  vf  j  i  vi 


^66  Tjy^     ^ -jy  Two -PENNY  Tkash; 

ACT  L 

SCENE  I. — Swioise  :  a  Meadow  and  Cows  in  it,  with  a  Lane  on  the 
side  of  it:  m  Farm- House  in  the  back- ground -.  Betsy  m  the 
Meadow  with  a  mitking'jjaiL  on  her  army  aiidViCK,  in  a  smock- 
frock,  coming  along  the.  Lane.. 

Dick.  (Singing.) 

Soft's  the  note  of  yonder  wood-lark  ^  *  ^^ 

Softer  far  my  Betsy's  voice  :  i.  '  J. 

Sweet's  the  dew  in  cups  of  cowslips ; 
Sweeter  something  that's  my  choice. 

Bet.  (Behind  the  hedge  listening.) — ^And  pray  what 
may  that  be  ? 

Dick.  (Starting,  and  then  jumping  over  a  gap  in  the 
hedge.) — Why,  the  dew  upon  your  lips,  my  lovely  Betsy. 
_Bet. — Come,  come,  now,  let  go  my  hands,  do  ;  Mistress 
scolds  so  when  1  get  in  late  with  the  milk.  But,  Dick,  when 
are  we  to  go  to  church  ?  You  said  it  should  be  by  May- 
day, you  know,  and  that's  to-morrow ;  and  the  banns  are 
out. 

Dick. — It  should  be  to-morrow,  my  love,  if  we  had  the 
money  ;  but  I  have  got  only  40s.  coming  to  me. 

Bet. — But  Mistress  owes  me  23s. 

Dick. — That  makes  only  63s.,  and  what  is  that  to  get 
things  wdth  ? 

Bet. — Mother  says  she'll  lend  us  her  bed,  if  she  lie  upon 
straw.  Now,  do  ;  for  the  folks  laugh  at  me  so ;  and  Poll 
Thorn  jeered  me  yesterday,  and  said  she'd  have  you  yet. 

Dick. — She  !.,But  here  comes  Master. 

[He  jumps  into  the  lane. 

Bet.  (To  herself^ — I  see  he's  in  the  mind,  and  Fll 
keep  him  to  it  now.  \_She  begins  milking. 

Farmer  Stiles,  coming  up  to  Dick. 

Stiles. — Here  Dick,  take  this  letter  up  to  the  Guixdtjk 
Arms.  'Tis  for  one  Squire  Thimble,  who  is  come  down 
from  London  by  the  night-coach,  something  about  surplice 
population,  as  they  call  it,  and  Sir  Gripe  Grindum 
wants  me  to  have  him  at  my  house,  instead  of  going  to 
Grindum  Hall. 

Dick. — Yes,  very  kind  of  Sir  Gripe^  to  send  his  friends 
to  feed  upon  you.     That's  his  old  way  ! 

Stiles. — Nevermind:  he'd  tura  me  out  of  my  farrfl, 
if  I  were  to  refuse ;  and  *tis  but  a  bit  of  bacon  and  pudding 
and  a  mug  of  beer  But  now,  Dick,  you  don't  use  that  girl 
well ;  the  banns  are  out,  and  every-body's  laughing  at  her  j 
and  she's  a  right  good  girl,  and  comes  of  good  kin ;  and..  i7 

Dick. — You  need  not  tell  me  that,  master;  but  we  %^ 


so  poor ;  and  suppose  me  to  fall  sick,  Fd  rather  die  than  see 
her  begging  a  morsel  of  bread  from  the  flint-hearted  hired 

Stiles  .—Well,  Dick,  I  tell  you  whai :  T  'If  a&Vance 
you  five  pounds,  and  Vm  sure  her  mistress  will  advance 
50s.  for  Betsy,  and  you  may  live  at  the  farm,  for  a  montl^ 
or  two.  ■■  ■    ■"^■^''  -''    '  "  '  ♦■''^*'''  -^ 

Dick. — Well,  then,  God  bless  you  both!  F 11  keep  my 
word  and  be  married  to-morrow ;  and  F 11  go  and  speak  to 
the  clerk  directly.         -^-^   'V'  ;*  V  ''' ;     '     ;-    ' 

Stiles.— But  go  andckfl^  tlie  letter^fiV^tf 'ariffffelT.  .'i':^ 

Dick.  {Looking  over  the  hedge.) — Petsy,  B^tsj  f 
Weshallbe....       --'^"'^  -■->-' ^   '  ■   ''     ' 

Stiles. — There,  go  along;  do  ;  and  let  the  girl  ^et  her 
milking  done.  Tell  the  gentleman  I  shall  be  glad  to  ^e^ 
him  as  soon  as  he  pleases.  ..:.^::'wJi,-  .Jijn;.  ^ 

^     [ TAey  go  out,  the  Farmer  towards  Kis  ' House,  dnU 
•'^         Dick  towards  the  Inn, 

SCENE  II. — A  Room  at  the  Inn;  Squire  Thimble  sittirig  dt  a 
.^n"'>'^  Table i  covered  with  written  papers  and  jyamphlets. 

Squire  Thim.  {Rising  and  going  to  the  window.^ — 
Oh,  God  !  Only  look  at  that  swarm  of  children !  Why, 
this  village  of  Nestbet)  is  properly  enough  named  ;  for  it 
really  resembles  an  ant*s  nest.  It  is  all  the  fault  of  my 
friend.  Sir  Gripe,  and  the  other  land-owners.  But  I  won-» 
der  I  do  not  hear  from  him  in  answer  to  my  letter,  which  he 
got  by  post  yesterday.  I  know  he  i;5  at  the  Hall,  for  the 
waiter  saw  him  there  last  night.  los'^oo  p.vsv  i/5 

Enter  Dick  with  the  letter.,  which  he  gives  to  BguiRE  Thimble. 
Dick.  — My  master,  Fariper  Stiles,   sent  me  with  :this 
letter,  Sir,  and  to  say  that  he  ghgJi.be  ,gJad .  to jsee  you  at 
his  house  as  soon  as  you  please..  .M'/f^^'i'i  '^{[t  p'^^^^    [Exit^ 
..-,Squ.  THiM.f-^At  his  house  I    But  (opening  the  letter) 
here  is  a  note  from  Sir  Gripe,  which  doubtless  will  explaiii 
the  reason.     {Reads.)     '^  My  dear  Thimble,  you  know  that 
^'  our  great  master.  Parson  Malthus,  lays  it  down,  that 
**  population  always  treads  closely  upon  the  heels  of 
*^  subsistence.      Acting    upon    this   principle,   and   fully 
"  agreeing  with  you,  that  the  country  is  ruined  by  surplus 
*^  population^  I  deem  it  a  duty  to  my  beloved  jcountry, 
*'  for  the  happiness  and  honour  of  which  I  have  so  long 
*'  been  toiling  and  making  so  many  sacrifices,  to  suffer  no 
*f  ^subsistence  to  be  in  my  house  beyond  a  bare  sufficiency 
^  to  keep  body  and  soul  together.     I  have,  therefore,  told 
**  J^armer  Stiles  to  send  this  to  you  to-morrow  morning,  0^4 

n2 


268  Two-penny  T^ash; 

*'  provide  you  with  bed,  board,  &c.  and  I  will  call  on  you 
**  at  his  house,  about  breakfast  time/'  Umph  !  Body  and 
soul  together  !  Very  laudable,  to  be  sure,  to  check  the 
population  in  his  house ;  but  I  do  not  very  clearly  see  how 
my  being  entertained  in  it  for  a  day  or  two  could  have 
tended  to  increase  the  population  in  it.  However  {rings)y 
I  shall  see  how., ,  .(^/i^er  Waiter.)  Waiter,  what  a 
clock  is  it  ?  ^^  y,f^^  .  >:  3  (I 

^.Waiter. — I  *11  inquire,  Sir.       -0'^  bsinrAn  v<\      [J^xit, 

Squ.  Thim.  {Gathering  up  his  papers,) — -These  will 
save  the  nation,  and  will  be  read  with  wonder  long  after 
I  am..  • . 

Waiter.  {Re-entering,) — It's  half-past  five,  Sir. 

Squ.  Thim. — Here  ;  get  me  a  man  to  bring  this  [port- 
manteau after  me  down  to  Farmer  Stiles's.  [Exit, 

Waiter.  {Reading  the  name  on  the  portmanteau,) — 
*'  Peter  Thimble,  Esquire."  'Squire,  indeed  !  I 
should  have  taken  him  for  a  tailor,  and  a  French  tailor 
too,  for  'tis  the  swarthiest  and  ugliest  devil  I  ever  saw. 

[Exit  with  portmanteau, 

SCENE  III. — j4  Cow-pen  at  the  Farm  :  Dick  antf  Betsy.  ' 

,vDiCK, — I  have,  I  tell  you.       ;>'-  -  '      ^:^^y 
:    Bet. — What,  spoke  to  the  clefk? 

Dick. — Yes,  I  say  ;  and  he  is  to  tell  the  parson  of  it  as 
soon  as  he  gets  up. 

Bet.  — Gets  up  !  What  is*nt  he  up  yet ! 
lifiDiCK. — Oh,  no  !    We  work  for  him  while  he's  asleep  : 
his  pay  always  goes  on. 

Bet. — But,  when  is  it  to  be  ? 
r.  Dick.  — At  nine  o'clock  to-morrow  morning. 

Bet. — Oh!  my  dear  Richard  {taking  hold  of  his^ 
hand) ;  and  is  the  time  come  at  last  ? 
r 'Dick.- — Yes,  it  is,  iny  little  love;  and  mistress  says 
that  you  may  go  and  stay  all  day  to-day  and  to  night  at 
your  mother's  and  get  yourself  ready  against  I  come  in  the 
morning.         j      ,         •• 

Bet.— Bat  you'll bVswre to  come  now! 
-.  ^    ■'    .    [Puts  the  corner  of  her  apron  to  her  eyes, 

Dick. — What's  the  matter  1 
tVBtr, — Nothing:  Fm  such  a  fool,  I  can't  help  it. 
:    Dick. — Be  quiet  now,  there's  a  dear;  for. . . . 

Stiles.  {In  the  yard.) — Dick!  Dick! 

Dick. — Coming!  [Exit. 

Bet.— Oh,  dear  !  I  ought  to  be  happy,   Vm  sure  ;  and 
yet  there's  something  that  makes  my  heart  sink.     Now 


1st  Ju^i,,  1831.  269 

what  will  become  of  the  jeerings  of  Poll  Thorn,  and"  of  that 
nasty  slut,  Nance  Bramble,  who  said,  t'other  day,  that 
he'd  never  have  me?  I  shall  wear  my  bran  new  white  bon- 
net lined  with  pink,  Richard  wdll  have  his  new  coat,  and 
good  old  mistress  (God  Almighty  bless  her)  says  that  we 
fehall  be  the  handsomest  couple  that  have  walked  into  Nest- 
bed  church  these  fifty  years.  Oh,  lor !  I  wish  t'was  over  ; 
for  my  heart  does  beat  so,  and  sink  so,  that  I  can  hardly 
stand. 

Squ.  Thim.  (^At  the  house-door.)— UaWoo  \  Nobody  at 
home?  '    '^  :^*^^ 

>:  Bet. — Oh,  dear !  I  forgot  the  eggs  that  Mistress  sent  me 
to  get  for  the  Squire's  breakfast.  [Exit. 

SCENE  l\ .—A  small  ParUur  in  the  Farm-house :    Squ.  ThimBLE 

sitting  before  the  Jire:  breakfast  preparing, 

Squ.  Thim.  {To  himself.) — I  don  t  much  like  his  send- 
ing me  here,  instead  of  receiving  me. at  the  hall;  but  I  dard> 
say  he  will  explain  it  when  he  comes.  - — .  ,- 

Mrs.  Stiles.  {Entering. — Hope  you  will  e?ccuse  our 
homely  fare.  Sir,  but  we'll  give  you  the  best  weVe  got.) 
{Betsy,  entering  with  the  eggs,  lets  a  couple  of  them  roll 
off  the  plate  upon  the  floor.)  What  a  deuce  is  the  girl 
about !  But  {iurriing  to  Squire  Thimble)  I  hope  you'll  look 
over  it.  Sir :  she's  going  to  be  married  to-morrow,  and  her 
head  has  been  running  upon  that  all  the  morning. 

Squ.  Thim.— Marnec?,  did  you  say!  Married  I  Tl\i2i,t 
girl  going  to  be  married  !  ^  "  • 

Mrs.  Stiles. — Yes,  Sir;  they  have  been  courting  a 
long  while,  and  they  be  desperate  fond  of  one  another. 

Squ.  Thim. — Desperate  in^^^di !  But  do  you  encourage 
such  things,  then  ? 

Mrs.  Stiles.  What  things,  Sir? 

Squ.  Thim.  Why,  the  coupling  together  of  these  popr 
creatures  to  fill  the  country  with  beggars  and  thieves.  !ro'? 
Mrs.  Stiles.  {With  warmthJ) — Fm  sure  there  isn't 
a  better  young  man  in  the  parish  than  Richard  Hazle,  and 
as  for  Betty  Birch,  young  as  she  is,  she  shall  make  breads 
butter,  cheese,  or  beer,  with  any  woman  in  the  whole 
county,  let  the  next  be  who  she  will.  Beggars  and  thieves, 
indeed ! 

Squ.  Thim. — Well,  if  these  be  good  people,  so  much  the 
more  reason  to  keep  them  from  being  plunged  into  misery  ; 

and 

Mrs.  Stiles.  {Interrupting  him.)-'-Mi$ery ,  Sir  I       - 


27Q  Two-Penny  Trash; 

Squ.  Thim. — Yes,  and  from  adding  to  that  great  nli- 
tional  disease,  the  surplus  population. 

Mrs.  Stiles.  — Never  heard  of  that  disease  before,  SirJ 
we  be'nt  trouble  with't  in  these  parts:  though  we  have  the 
small-pox  and  meazles  terrible  bad  sometimes;  and  our 
poor   neighbour  Chopstick  lost  four  as  fine  children   last 

week  as * 

.    Squ.  Thim.— So  much  the  better!  So  much  the  better! 
'•  Mrs.  Stiles.— What,  Sir! 

Squ.  Thim. — Yes  5  so  much  the  better,  I  say,  and 
{aside)  if  it  had  taken  you  off  too^  it  would  have  been  better 
^tilL  {To  her.)  Go,  good  woman,  and  tell  the  girl  to  come 
and  speak  to  me.  .  jl  ;  ^o  'hh 

Mrs.  Stiles. — She's  going  to  her  mother's  to  get  ready 
for  her  wedding;  but  I'll  call  her  in  for  a  minute.       [Exit 

Enter  Betsy. 

S^u.  Thim. — So,  young  woman,  you  are  going  to  be 
married,  I  understand  ? 

Bet. — Yes,  Sir. 
T  Squ,  Thim. — How  old  are  you? 
(    Bet. — I'm  nineteen,  Sir,  come  next  Valentine's  eve. 
V   Squ.  Thim;— That  is  to  say,  you  are  eighteen!  {Aside*) 
jNo  wonder  the  country  is  ruined ! 
:     Squ.  TniAr. — And  your  mother,  now;  how  old  is  she? 

Bet.-^I  can't  justly  say,  Sir,  but  I  heard  her  say  she  Was 
forty  some  time  back.  .    x 

.  Squ.  Thim.' — And  how  many  (rf  jou-has  ' she  brought 
into  the  world  ?  -  '"iU;i 

x:   JBet. — Only  seventeen,  Sir. 

Squ.  Thim. — Seventeen!   On Zy  seventeen! 
9^'^Bet. — Seventeen  now  alive.  Sir;  she  lost  two,  and  had 
two  still  born,  and 

Squ.  Thim. — Hold^^  your  tongue!  Hold  your  tongue! 
'^^{Aside,)  It  is  quite  monstrous!  Nothing  can  save  the 
country  but  plague,  pestilence,  famine,  and  sudden  death. 
^Government  ought  to  import  a  ship-l<jad  of  arsenic-  {To  her,) 
IBut,  young  woman,  cannot  you  impose  on  yourself  "  moral 
^Yestraint^^  for  ten  or  a  dozen  years? 
c.  Bet.— Pray  what  is  that.  Sir? 

^'    Squ.  Thim. — Cannot  you  keep  single  till  yoir  are  abofut 
thirty  years  old  ?  '     -^'^'^ 

Mf)BET,— -Thirty  years  old.  Sir  !  {slifiing  a  laugh),- 
;  ViOciiii  oHii  Enter  Sir  Gripe  Grisdum.    ^J^  ii<^'  - - 

'Squ.  Thim.  {Rising.) — How  do  you,  Sir  Gripe;  hopfe 
I've  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  welk 


0-. 


1st  June,  1831.  ^271 

Sir  G. — Very  well,  rery  well ;  but  rather  hungry.   " 

Squ.  Tiiim. — Draw  up,  then;  here  are  plenty  of  eggs 
and  butter. 

Sir  G. — Yes,  they  think  nothing  of  Malthus  here. 
I:    Squ.  TiiiMk— So  it  seems,  for  this  young  hussey  is  going 
to  be  married  to-morrow,  though  she  is  only  eighteen.     Her 
mother  has  had,  it  seems,  only  twenty-one  children  ;  so 
that  you'll  have  your  parish  finely  stocked. 

Sir  G. — Married  !  {Aside)  What  a  beautiful  creature 
it  is! 

Squ.  Thim. — -Yes,  married;  and  she  laughs  at  the  idea 
of  moral  restraint. 

Sir  G. — I  dare  say  she  does.  {Aside.)  And  so  shall  I, 
too,  if  I  can  get  her  into  my  clutches. 

Squ.  Tiiim. — You  may  go,  young  woman  ;  for  I  find  I 
can  do  nothing  with  you.  [Exit  Betsy. 

.'  Sir  G.  {Aside.) — Bat  /  can  do  something  with  her,  I 
fancy.  {To  Thimble.)  Yes,  she  may  go  for  the  present  5 
but  it  is  my  duty,  my  bounden  duty  to  my  country,  to  pre- 
vent this  marriage.  ?uj — .y^  yy^jvi  .k^.    . 

Squ.  Tiiim. — To  be  sure  it  is.     It  Is  a  ddty  of  inimanity 
as  well  as  of  patriotism.     But  you  must  be  quick  ;  for  she 
is  to  be  married  to-morrow  morning. 
r    Sir  G. — To-morrow  morning ! 

;  Squ,  Thim. —Yes  ;  and  the  farmer's  wife  here  approves 
of  the  match  !  Would  it  not  be  well  10  find  the  farmer  and 
talk  to  him  about  it.  .1.^.. .  , 

Sir  G. — I  shan't,  but  you  may;  and,  in  the  meanwhile^ 
ril  go  home  and  dispatch  some  business,  and  be  with  you 
again  in  an  hour  or  so.  "iV^  .-"Trj*]  .-'>  '—rx-i- [Exit, 

Squ.  Thim. — Business!  wh^ii  business  ?  He  thinks  I 
did  not  perceive  him  staring  at  her.  He  has  some  scheme 
ia  his  head*  But,  no  matter  :  any-thing  is  better  than  her 
having  seventeen  children.  Why,  ^tis  littering,  'tis  piggingy 
'tis  hatclring,  'tis  swarming  ;  and  if  they  are  allowed  to 
proceed  at  this  rate,  there  won't  be  room  for  them  to  stand 
upright  in  the  country.  I'll  go  and  find  the  farmer,  and  see 
what  I  can  make  of  himn^Jsd  vm  IWt  Inbrb  [Exit. 

SCENE  V. — Mrs.  Birch's   Cottage:  Mtts.BittCH  and  Betsy,  and 

L  .    :  several  children  of  different  ages, 

.*;  Betsy. — ^^Don't  you  think,  mother,  that  these  white  bowa 
are  beautful ;  and  isn't  my  frock  as  white  as  a  curd ;  and 
ilrtilsil't  we  Walk  atiii  in  arm  ttx  church  ?  Oh!  how  that 
Poll  Thorn  will  be  provoked!  1  shouldn't  wonder  if  she 
Was  to  fly  at  m e .  '  t'i-'in *^ i  t- i' ti  — *•  l: lh'i  .j'^'C 


1J72  Two-penny  Trash; 

Mrs.  Birch. — How  you  do  run  on,  child. 

Bet  — Patty  Primrose  and  Mary  Violet,  my  two  brides- 
maids, will  be  dressed  all  in  white ;  and  uncle  Stephen 
says,  that  nobody  but  him  shall  give  me  away. 

Mrs*  Birch. — Ah!  my  dear,  if  your  poor  father  had 
-been  alive,  he 

Bet. — Don't  cry,  mammy;  let  us  be  happy  now. 

Mrs.  Birch. — And  so  I  am,  my  dear  child;  but,  talking 

of  your  uncle  put  me  in  mind  of Here  comes 

Barebone,  Sir  Gripe's  footman:  I  wonder  what  he  can 
want. 

Enter  Barebone.  > 

Barebone. — Sir  Gripe  wants  to  speak  to  you,  Mrs. 
Birch,  up  at  the  hall,  in  about  an  hour's  time. 

Mrs.  Birch.  {Aside.) — Tis  about  the  rent.  {To 
him,)  My  duty  to  him,  and  say  that  I  shall  be  sure  to  wait 
on  him.  [Exit  Barebone, 

Bet. — What  can  that  nasty  old  skinny,  greedy  beast 
want  with  you,  mother? 

Mrs.  Birch. — Oh,  child  !  T  owe  him  a  year's  rent  up  to 
Lady- day,  and  I  can't  pay  him  till  after  the  harvest,  without 
selling  the  cow ;  and  then  what  are  the  poor  dear  children 
to  do  ? 

Bet. — Well,  I  don't  know  how  it  is,  but  I  have  had  a 
misgiving  in  my  mind  all  day  that  something  bad  was  going 
to  happen. 

Mrs.  Birch, — Never  mind,  child;   God  will  be  our 

protector. 

^  Enter  Dick. 

/  Betsy.— Ob,  Richard,  I'm  glad  you're  come ;  for  I  was 
so  low-spirited. 

Dick. — What  about?     Don't  repent,  do  you  1 

Bet. — How  can  you  ask  me  that?  But,  there's  that 
pld  beast,  Sir  Gripe,  has  just  sent  for  mother  about  the  ,  . . 

Dick. — Sent  for  her!  Why,  he  has  sent  for  me,  too, 
and  I'm  going  up  to  him. 

Bex. —  For  you!  As  sure  as  death,  there's  something 
brewing,  and  I  didn't  feel  my  heart  sinking  for  nothing. 

Dick.  {Taking  her  hand,) — Come,  come,  don't  be 
foolish.  What  do  you  cry  for  ?  Be  quiet  now ;  and  PU 
go  up  to  the  old  fellow,  and  call  as  I  come  back.         lExit. 

SCENE  VI.— Farme?'  Stiles's  Parlour.   Squire  Thimblb,  Stiles, 
and  Last,  the  Shoemaker  of  the  village, 

Squ.  Thim. — But,  farmer,  don't  you  see  what  a  brood, 


.     Uj  June,  1831.  ?73 

what  a  litter,  what  a  farrow,  what  a  swarm,  this  couple  will 
briDg  to  eat  up  the  country  ? 

Stiles. — Why,  Sir,  I  dare  say  they  will  have  plenty; 
but  God  never  sends  mouths  without  sending  meat. 

Squ.  Tmim,  — Not  for  them,  notybr  them. 

Last. — Whom  does  he  send  it  for,  then  1 

Squ.  Thim. — For  those  who  can  afiford  to  pay  for  it. 

Last. — But  if  they  pay  for  it  out  of  the  money  that  they 
get  from  tithes  and  taxes,  God  does  not  send  it  for  them, 
but  they  take  it  by  force  from  those  who  work ;  and  it  does 
seem  strange,  indeed.  Sir,  that  you  should  seem  to  rejoice  in 
their  increase,  while  you  are  so  anxious  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
breeding  of  those  who  do  the  work. 

SiLEs. — Yes,  Sir,  as  neighbour  Last  says,  it  is  all  as  one 
as  if  I  were  to  put  a  stop  to  the  breeding  of  my  cart-mares 
and  breed  nothing  but  nags  and  pleasure  ponies. 

Squ.  Thim.  (Aside,) — Oh!  the  devil  I  these  fellows 
have  been  reading  Cobbett's  pernicious  Trash. 

Last. — Aye,  neighbour,  all  as  one  asif  you,  not  having 
corn  enough  to  keep  your  nags  and  cart-horses  too,  were  to 
knock  the  cart-horses  on  the  head. 

Stiles. — And  pretty  crops  I  should  have  then. 

Last. — And  pretty  payment  Sir  Gripe  would  get  from 
you  at  Michaelmas  and  Lady-day. 

Squ.  Thim. — But,  Mr.  Last,  do  you  not  know  that  there 
is,  in  nature,  a  tendency,  in  every  country,  for  the  people  to 
increase  faster  than  the  food  that  they  usually  live  on  ? 

Last. — I  do  not  only  not  know  that  fact,  but  I  know  that, 
besides  its  being  contrary  to  reason  and  experience,  it  is 
next  to  blasphemy  to  assert  it.  But,  Sir,  if  there  be  in 
nature  this  tendency,  how  comes  it  that  it  never  was  dis- 
covered before ;  and  that  never,  until  about  twenty -seven 
years  ago,  when  that  Scotch  fellow,  Malthus,  wrote  his 
book,  no  man  in  England  ever  dreamed  of  our  having  too 
many  people  ? 

Squ.  Thim. — The  evil  has  not  existed  until  of  late  years; 

Last. — But,  if  it  be  vi  nature,  why  did  it  not  exist 
before  ? 

Squ.  Thim.— Why,  I  suppose  that  there  used  to  be  more 
moral  restraint,  more  prudence,  as  to  marriage  and  having 
children. 

Last. — How  could  that  be,  when  you  say  that  the  want 
of  moral  restraint  arises  from  want  of  education,  and  when 
we  have  now  fifty  times  as  much  of  that  nonsense  as  we 
bsid  when  I  was  a  boy? 

ir5 


fiTl  Two-PTNN'Y  TAa^h; 

^'  Squ.  Thim. — But  you  will  allow  that  there  is  a  great 

want  of  employment  ?  •  X**^""**^  * 

.   lAS-r.^Yes.  '>  I  ,ii»  ,Xii^*— .' 

Squ.  Thim. — Then  you  allow  tHt' mere  "are  too  many 
labourers?  ■• 

Stiles.— No/ft'^';  S?f  rtdAf'TTttlg  'itidiieyinWMnd^  to 
pay  them  duly  for  their  labour.     Plenty  of  work  that  ought 
to  be  done,  but  not  enough  money  to  pay  for  it.  .'    •'^ 
«    Squ.  Thim. — That  comes  to  the  same  thirig;  for  if  you 
liave  not  money  to  pay  them  all,  there  are  too  many  of  them. 

Last. — By  no  means.  Suppose  Stiles,  hiere,  have  100?. 
in  his  drawer,  ready  to  pay  for  hoeing  that  he  intends  t(> 
have  done,  and  suppose  a  thief  to  co'me  and  steal  the  iiloney, 
Stiles  must  leave  the  ground  unhoed,  and  it  must  be  over- 
iha»  with  weeds>  and  the  crop  be  one  half  what  it  woilld 
have  been,  if  his  money  had  not  been  stolen. 
'  Squ.  Thim.^ — You  are  supposing  a  case  that  can  rarely 
happen. 

''<'  Last. — Not  at  all;  for  money  taken  away  liy  the  parson 
s,nd  the  ta?{ -gatherer  is  taken  ^way  from  Stiles  as  ej0Fectaally 
as  if  taken  away  by  thieves.   "  '^  .  "" 

Squ.  Thim. — What,  Sir;  do  you  call  the  parson  and 
the  tax-gatherer  thieves  ? 

Last. — Oh,  no!  but,  money  taken  away  from' SfileS  re 
money  deducted  from  his  means  of  paying  labourers,  no 
matter  by  whom,  or  under  what  pretence,  the  money  is  so 
takenV  ' 

Squ.  Thim.— You  must  know,  however,  at  any  rate, 
that  the  people  of  this  country  have  greatly  increased  id 
number.  -      , 

Last. — I  neither  know  nor  believe  it ;  for  I's^i^  chilMies 
built  hundreds  of  years  ag'o  with  scai'cely  any  parishioners^ 
I  see  mahy  of  them  quite  tumbled  down;  and  I  know  that 
they  never  would  have  been  built  if  there  had  not  been  peo- 
ple to  go  to  them.^  ^    ^  .  ^  .         ,         _• 

Squ.  Thim.  X'^^de.) — These  feflbwis  likve  all  been 
If^^ding  Cobbett,  and,  as  my  friends  Trevor  and  Wilmox 
say,  nothing  can  stand,  neither  church  nor  sta^e,  if  that 
wicked  fellow  be  not  put  to  silence.  (7b  them.)  You  think, 
then,  that  the  more  the  merrier,  and  the  more  paupers  you 
breed,  the  better  it  will  be  for  you,  and  that,  instead  of 
checking  premature  marriages,  you  ought  (as  indeed  you 
do)  to  offer  a  premium  for  breeding  childrep,  as  we  do  fdt 
breeding  sheep,  or  planting  trees.  '    ''^''  '  'lh  ^ 

Last. — There  needs  no  premium;  for,  whetn^r  marlfed 


;  Heist  June,  1831.  §fg 

6t  not,  country  girls  will  have  children ;  but,  since  you  talk 
oi paupers  and  of  a  premium  for  breeding ^  pray  what  are 
those  who  are  on  the  pension  and  sinecure  lists,  men,  wo-  ' 
men,  and  children  ?  and,  as  to  premiums  for  breeding, 
what  do  you  call  the  money  that  is  given  to  poor  parsons, 
and  to  half-pay  officers  and  their  widows  and  children  ?  Are 
not  these  premiums  for  breeding,  and  premiums  too  paid  out 
of  taxes  raised  in  part  on  these  very  labourers  ?  And  what 
are  the  military  academies  and  asylums  but  premiums  to 
the  rich  and  the  soldiers  to  induce  them  to  breed  ?  You  find 
no  fault  of  these  premiums  for  the  breeding  of  idlers^  and 
are  alarmed  only  at  the  increase  of  those  ^^Yio  work,  "7 

Squ.  Thim. — I  am  alarmed  at  the  increase  of  the  pau^ 
per^,  ^vho  already  eat  up  the  country.  .t.jci.  , 

Last. — Not  they,  indeed  :  it  is  your  idlers  that  eat  up  the 
Country :  it  is  they  that  make  the  working-people  so  poor 
that  they  are  obliged  to  come  to  the  parish  or  starve. 

Squ.  Thim. — Obliged  to  come  and  demand  other  peo^ 
pie's  property  to  live  on  ! 

-  Last. — It  is  not  other  people's  property:  it  is  their  own 
property :  they  inherit  a  right,  both  by  nature  and  by  law, 
to  subsistence  out  of  the  land,  in  exchange  for  their  labour, 
and  if  they  be  unable  to  labour,  or  can  get  no  labour,  they 
have  the  right  without  the  labour. 

Enter  Mrs.  Stiles  with  a  letter, 

Squ.  Thim. — Well,  good  morning,  gentlemen.  {They 
go  out.)  Ah!  (reading)  he  invites  me  to  the  hall!  I 
thought  he  would  not  let  me  remain  here  long  {Reads) t 
*•'  My  dear  Thimble!  the  pleasure  of  your  enlightened  dis-i' 
*'  -course  is  always  so  great,  that  it  was  with  the  most  acute 
"  pain  that  I  quitted  you  this  morning."  O,  oh !  this  is  some- 
tiiinglike  justice.  ''  Pray  do  me  the  honour  to  come  up  here; 
*'  and  to  bring  with  you  your  last  admirable  remedy  against 
*^  that  .great  national  scourge,  the  procreation  of  the  human 
^  species.  As  they  keep  early  hours  at  the  farm,  you  will, 
"  most  likely,  have  dined  before  this  will  reach  you;  if  you 
f*  have  not,  you  need  not  be  in  a  hurry ;  for,  as  '  population 
^  treads  close  upon  the  heels  of  subsistence,'  I  take  care  to 
\^  keep  a  short  supply  here."  Well,  well ;  FH  get  a  bit  of 
something  here,  and  then  I'll  go  up.  :i  ,  ; 


'  ACT.  IL 

SCENE  I.— Mrs.  Birch's  Cfif^^flfo-e;  Dick  dw^  Betsy. 
Betsy. — Didn't  you  meet  mother  ?  ;      * 

Dick.— No :  she  went  by  the  lane^  I  suppose,  and  I  came 
Across  the  fields. '^-'"'''  "'^  t^i-^-i  fi  «.'  ^i'^^i  laii^ij  ,uid  o)  eA 


276  Two«PENNY  Tkash  ; 

Bet. — Well,  what  did  the  greedy  old  rogue  want  with 
you? 

Dick. — What  do  you  think,  now  ?  What  do  you  think 
that  the  skin-flint  old  rascal  wanted  me  to  do? 

Bet. — God  knows :  to  rob  Mistress's  pantry  for  him, 
perhaps. 

Dick. — Worse  than  that. 

Bet. — Worse  !  why,  then,  to  take  false  oaths  for  him,  as 
his  steward  Scut  does. 
^   Dick. — Worse,  a  great  deal  worse  than  that. 

Bet. — Poor  father  always  said  he  was  the  devil :  but 
what  was  it,  then  I 

Dick. — Why,  he  wanted  me  to  be  false  to  you  ! 

Bet. — Oh!  the  old  villain!  False  tome!  And  what 
could  the  greedy  old  monster  get  by  that  ? 

Dick. — Yes,  and  he  told  me  he  would  get  me  a  place  at 
London,  in  the  King's  guards,  and  have  me  made  an  oflicer, 
if  I  would  set  off  by  the  coach  to-night. 

Bet. — To-night ! 

Dick. — Yes,  and  when  I  refused,  he  got  into  a  deuce  of 
a  passion,  and. .  (seeing  three  men  going  by), .  I  wonder  who 
those  rough-looking  fellows  are  } 

Bet. — Oh,  they  are  some  blackguards  going  up  to  the 
Hall,  I  dare  say.  He  never  has  any-body  but  such  people 
about  him. 

Dick. — ^Yes,  as  Mr.  Last  says,  the  Hall  is  more  like  a 
robbers*  den  than  a  gentleman's  house.  But  (looking  up 
at  the  sun)  it  is  twelve  o'clock:  1  must  get  home  to  feed 
the  oxen. 

Bet. — Well,  good -by  ;  but  you'll  come  up  this  evening. 

Dick. — Yes,  yes,  I'll  be  here  about  seven  or  eight,   [Exit. 

SCENE  II. — j4  Room  in  Gripe  Hall,  cobwebs  on  the  ceiling,  a  dirty 
fioon',  a  dirty  dtal  table,  and  twofold  chairs,  on  one  of  which  SiR 
Gripe  is  sitting. 

Sir  G. — Amongst  those  that  I  have  lived  with,  there  is 

not  one  mother  out  of  a  score  that  would  not,  for  a  handful 

of  guineas,  be  the  bawd  in  the  seducing  of  her  own  daughter  ; 

and  if  this  woman,  who  owes  me  a  year's  rent,  and  whom  I 

can  strip  to-morrow  of  every  rag  that   she  has,  holds  out 

against  me,  it  will  be   bad  luck  indeed.     This  is  the  most 

beautiful  girl  I  ever  set  my  eyes  on  ;  and  am  not  1  her  lord  ? 

Is  she  not  my  property?     And  shall  this  fellow,  who  is  also 

my  slave,  take  her  from  me  1     It  will  be  better  for  them  both, 

too  ;  for  they  would  soon  begin  to  starve,  and  then  to  fight 

like  dog  and  cat.     But,  better  or  better  not,  Til  have  her. 

As  to  sin,  either  there  is  a  hell,  or  there  ia  not ;  if  not, 


% 


1st  June,  1830.  277 

there  is,  in  this  country,  no  loss  of  character  for  a  maa 
"who  has  forty  thousand  a-year ;  and,  if  there  be  a  hell,  it  is 
already  my  lot ;  so  that  111  have  my  enjoyment  in  spite  of 
the  devil ;  and  now  for. .  . 

Enter  Barebone. 

Bare. — The  widow  Birch  is  come,  Sir  Gripe.  ->, 

Sir  G. — Show  her  in.  \^Exit  Barebone.']  If  I  can't 
prevail  upon  the  mother  to  stop  the  marriage,  I  must  get  the 
girl  away  to-night  somehow  or  other,  and  get  her  to  Londoa 
too.  There's  nothing  like  that :  old  Mother  Carbuncle, 
the  bawd,  or  Mother  Lynx,  the  mad-house  keeper,  will  re- 
ceive her,  and  I  can  follow  in  a  day  or  two. — But  soft !  here 
comes  the  mammal 

Enter  Mrs.  Birch. 

Mrs.  Bir. — Your  servant,  Sir  Gripe  (curtsies) ;  I'm 
very  sorry  my  rent  is  behindhand  ;  but 

Sir  G. — Oh!  never  mind,  never  mind  the  rent,  Mrs. 
Birch  ;  sit  down,  sit  down.  I'm  not  one  of  your  proud  fel- 
lows; we're  all  flesh  and  blood. 

Mrs.  Bir.  (Aside.) — How  deceived  folks  are  in  him! 
(To  him,)     I  can  stand,  Sir,  I  thank  you. 

Sir  G. — No,  no;  sit  down,  sit  down,  Mrs.  Birch:  Fm 
glad  to  see  you  looking  so  well:  I  hope  your  children  are 
Well. 

Mrs.  Birch. — Purely  well,  I  thank  you.  Sir. 

Sir  G. — How  many  of  them  have  you  got,  Mrs.  Birch  ? 

Mrs.  Birch.-— Only  seventeen  alive.  Sir. 

Sir  G. — Seventeen!  Why  you  look  young  enough  and 
handsome  enough  to  have  seventeen  more. 

Mrs.  Birch.     (Smiling.) — Oh,  dear,  Sir. 

Sir  G. — And  what  do  you  do  with  them  all,  Mrs.  Birch  ? 

Mrs.  Birch. — Nine  of  them  are  out  at  service,  one  lives 
with  her  aunt,  and  there  are  seven  at  home. 
■   Sir  G. — Are  they  boys  or  girls  ? 

Mrs.  Birch. — Twelve  boys  and  five  girls,  Sir,  and, 
though  I  say  it,  as  good  children  they  be  as  any  in  the 
parish,  and,  thanks  be  to  God,  not  a  day's  sickness  have  we 
had  in  the  house  since  their  poor  father  died,  and  that  was 
three  years  ago  last  Friday  as  ever  was;  and  they  be  so  du- 
tiful to  me,  and  comes  so  kindly  to  see  me  every  Sunday^ 
when  they  can  be  spared  ;  and  they  do  so  love  one  another  • 
and  they  all  seem  to  do  their  best  to  make  up  for  the  loss  of 
their  poor  father,  who,  poor  soul,  used,  when  he  came  home 
from  his  work,  to  have  four  or  five  of  them  upon  his  knees 
^t  once.     Oh !  Sir,  never  was  there  such  a  father,  and  never 


278  Tw6-PJBN.NY  Trauh; 

«uch  a. .  but. .  but. .  it  pleased  God  to. .  (wipes  her  €yes)Ci 
pray,  Sir,  be  so  good  as  to  excuse.  jLitu^^uonl  vJioi  and  cdv/ 
i'.  Sir  G.    {Looking  like  SatanS) — Never  mind,  never  mind, 
Mrs.  Birch.     Any  of  them  married,  Mrs*  Birch.?  i  .n  i  j  Jii) 

Mrs.  Birch. — No,  Sir,  not.  / 

Sir  G. — That's  right,  that's  right:  don't  let  them  mirry 
^ill  they're  thirty :  only  brings  ruin  and  misery  and  starva- 
tion and  poaching  and  thieving  and  treadmills  and  trans- 
portings  and  hangings.  That's  right,  Mrs.  Birch  ;  that's 
right ;  keep  them  single  'till  they  be  thirty,  and  then  they 
will  do  well.  If  any  of  them  were  to  marry  young,  I  should 
be  very  angry  with  you  ;  and.  .  ' 

Mrs.  Birch.     (Aside.)— Wh^t  shall  I  do  '?  -o^ 

Sir.G.. — i\.nd  should,  in  short,  order  my  Steward,  Mr. 

Scut,-td..  V'*'^l!^.^f 

Mrs.  Birch;^^!  beg  your  pardon.  Sir  Gripe, "but  my 
daughter  Betsy  is  going  to  be. . 
*    Sfr  G,     (Angrily.) — What!  not  married,  I  hope? 

Mrs.  Birch. — They  have  courted  so  long,  Sir,  and  they 
nave  been  such  constant  lovers,  and  the  banns  have  been  g^ut 
for  these  three  weeks,  and, .  ^^ 

Sir  G. — To  tell  you  the  truth,  I  have  heard  of  this,  Mrs. 
Birch,  and  I  have  sent  for  you  to  talk  to  you  about  it.  You 
area  sensible  woman,  Mrs.  Birch,  and  I  have  a  great  regard 
for  you  and  your  family,  and  wisii  well  particularly  to  this 
young  woman  ;  and,  therefore,.' I  ''  ^"^"^  woH-^. 

Mrs.  Birch. — Thank  you,  Sir,  God  will  bless  you  for 
it,  and  Vm  sure  they'll  both  prove  deserving  of  your  good- 
ness; for  Richard  Hazle  is  as  good  a  young  man  as  any  ia 
jthe  whole  country ;  and  he  has  lived  with  Farmer  Stiles 
ever  since  he  was  eight  years  old ;  and  they  do  so  love  one 
another ;  and  Mrs.  Stiles  says  they  are  the  handsomest 
couple  that, ,  •'' 

^  Sir  G. — Well,  well  ;  never  mind  that  now.  You  are 
a  sensible  woman,  and  you  know  that  this  love,  as  they 
call  it,  is  all  nonsense ;  and  that  when  poverty  pomes  in  at 
Ihe  door,  this  love  flies  out  of  the  window.  ...    ^'i.' 

^    Mrs.  Birch.— Not  always.  Sir;  for  I  am  sure  that  I 
^nd  my  poor  husband  were  poor  enough,  and. ... 
<'^  Sife  Gi— Well,  well ;  but,  now,  don't  you  think  it  would 
jbe  better  to  piit  off  this  marriage  for  a  year  or  two,  'till. . 
'    Mrs.  BiRCH.-:-Lor,    Sir,  it  would  break  poor  Betsy^s 
heart.  ;:     '  '  /'      '  / 

^'  Sir  G.— Oh,    no!     Women's  hearts   ar^  tougher  thati 
you  think  fof.  (Aside.)  I  know  that  pretty  welh^     .r^aoiJ^ 


^"Mfyjtri^E,  18517  4?^ 

jr^.Miis.  Birch. — Not  Betsy's,  Sir;  poor  thing,  she'd  go 
crazy,  and  so  would  Richard  too.  J 

.^,  Sir  G.— Now,  Til  tell  you  what  Til  do,  Mrs,  Birch*: 
1*11  make  your  daughter  my  house-keeper  in  London,  and 
Fll  make  Hazle  my  bailiff  here,  and  give  eacfe.  ,of,them 

'twenty  pounds  a  year  and  their  board. 


Mrs.  Birch. — Lor,  Sir! 


V^A'Y  .11  >g 


'«  <iw 


,v.  Sir  G.- — Will  you  propose  it, to  them  ?      hT  ?fv 
4yf-  Mrs.  Birch.— Pray  don't  ask  me  to  do  it,  Sir.  vr^;<i 
Sir  G. — Why,  you  can  propose  it,  at  any  rate.        ^^c.  j 
Mrs.  Birch. — No,  indeed,  Sir,  I  cannot.     They  would 
hate  me  for  it.  and  how  am  I  to  endure  the  hatred  of  my 

'Sir  G.—i^Ayigfily.) — Better  than  you  can  endure  to 
jgtarve,  as  you  wdll,  if  you  don't  do  what  L  tell  you  to  do. 

Mrs.  Birch.— By  the  blessing  of  God^  Sir,  I  have  not 
starved  yet,  and  hope  I  shall  not. . ..,      /  ,  -  •  -> 

Sir  G,-^ And  what. is  God  to  dd~iof*  fdii^  you  perverse 
fool!    ^^^''^  ::iL'ov-:: 

Mrs.  .Birch.— He  says,  *^  Cursed  be  he  that  oppresseth 
the  widow  and  the  fatherless.'^ 

"Sir  G. — And  you,  being  the  interpreter,  apply  that  curse 
to  me,  eh  !  You  impudent  hag.              , 
'     Mrs.  Birch. — No,  indeed,  Sir^  l5ut 

Sir  G.-T~Hold  your  tongue!  go  along;  and  call  upon 
rGod  to  save  your  rags,  v/hen  Mr.  Scut  comes^  to-morjow 
morning,  to  bundle  you  into  the  road.  '  "'"^Z   , 

Mrs.  Birch. — I  will  call  upon  God,  Sir,  and  he  will 
"be  my  help  in  the  time  of  need.  [Exit, 

Sir  G. — Now,  then,  I  know  what  I  have  to  do.  {Rings 
)(hfi  bell.) 
nA:m./rfin  ^nter  Barebonk.  ■^"<'« 

Str  G. — Is  Squire  Thimble  come  ?  "'^.^ ''^ 

^  ""Bare.— Just  come,  Sir.  ^- \  /    ^  ^■^^- 

^^'  Sir  G. — Show  him  into  the  be^fWom,  and  sa;f  t  'WlTTJk 
with  him  directly.  (Exit  BAREBo:NrE.)  I  can't  trust  this 
fialf  fool,  Thimble;  he'll  have  his  qualms  of  conscience 
if  it  be  only  out  of  vanity  and  conceit ;  if  it  be  only  to 
show  his  philosophy,  as  the  fool  calls  it.  I  humour  him 
tvith  his  rubbishy  stuff  about  mrplus  population, -which 
lias  made  him  as  tnad  as  the  fellows  that  are  trying  to  dis- 
cover the  longitude,. and  he  really  thinks  that  I  half  starve 
^y  servants  purely  from  the  patriotic  motive  of  insuring 
their  continence !  But  I'll  sound  him  a  little  about  this 
girl;  at  any  rate,  and  see  what  he's  made  of.  "-^  ^^^ 


r280  Two-PENNT  Trash: 

^  r  f^   r  Enter   Bauebonb. 

^'^  BxtiE. — The  three  men,  Sir,  say  they  are  hungry  and 

'  Sir  G. — Send  one  of  them  to  the  inn  for  a  gallon  of  beer 
and  a  gallon  of  gin,  and  get  a  pound  or  two  of  cheap  cheese 
and  a  loaf.    I  may  want  them  by-and-by.  [^Exit  Barebone, 

SCENE  III.  The  Best  Room;  the  walls  smoky  ^  tvith  torn  papers  ; 
no  fire,  no  curtains y  old  broken  chairs y  and  a  ragged  carpet. 
Squire  Thimble  sitting  at  a  table  with  papers  and  pamphlets, 

Squ.  TniM. — Well  (looking  round  him)y  if  this  be  the 
best  room,  the  worst  must  be  some  degrees  worse  than^  a.  • 

Enter  Sir  Gripe. 
"  *Squ.  Thim.  (Rising  and  bowing,) — I  was  just  saying 
to  myself  what  a  beautiful  house  this  is,  how  tranquil,  how 
admirably  calculated  for  study,  and  especially  for  that  spe- 
cies of  study  which  I  delight  in  ;  for,  you  must  know  that 
London  does. . . . 

Sir  G.  (Aside.) — Oh  the  devil! 

Squ.  Thim not  favour  the  flow  of  ideas  like  this 

quiet.... 

Sir  G.   (Aside,) — By they  sha*nt  flow  here! 

Squ.  Thim place;  and    Pm  resolved  to   finish 

my  treatise  on  checking  population  before  I  go  back. 

Sir  G. — But,  where's  your  Remedy  against  Breeding, 
that  I  asked  you  to  bring  up  with  you  ? 

Squ.  Thim. — Here  'tis.  (Giving  it  to  Sir  G.) 

Sir  G.  (Reads  to  himself,  while  Thimble  sits  and 
looks  eagerly  at  him) — Admirable,  admirable !  Delight- 
ful I  Here  are  grammar,  logic,  philosophy,  eloquence,  ele- 
gance, clearness,  strength,  and,  in  short. .  •  • 

Squ.  Thim. — Oh,  no!  The  essay  is  well  enough,  but 
nothing  like  equal  to  that  which  I  have  now  in  hand:  Fll 
read  you  a  passage  of  it. . . . 

Sir  G.  (Raising  his  voice.) — "  Well  enough,"  do 
you  call  it !  I  say,  that  the  man  that  could  write  that 
ought  to  be  prime  minister. 

Squ.  Thim. — Oh,  no!  you  flatter  me;  but  do,  then, 
Jet  me  read  you  a  passage  from  my  new  work ;  for,  as  you 
will  see,,  •  •  •  g-* 

Sir  G. — No:  you  sha'nt,  you  sha'nt:  I  won't  hear  a 
word  of  it  till  it  comes  out :  I'll  hav't  all  together  :  a  taste 
beforehand  would  spoil  my  feast. 

Squ.  Thim.— Well,  then,  let  us  talk  of  what  ought  to 
be  done  a«  well  as  written. 

Sir  G. — Yes,  I  like  doing. 


.  jjJsT  June,  1831.  281 

Squ.  Thim. — These  positions  are  clear:  first,  part  of 
the  people  must  be  sent  out  of  the  country ;  or,  second,  the 
jnillions  must  be  made  to  live  on  potatoes,  like  the  Irish  ; 
or,  third,  their  breeding  must  be  checked  ;  or,  fourth,  those 
who  live  on  tithes  and  taxes  must  be  compelled  to  work  for 
their  bread. 

Sir  G. — As  to  the  first,  they  won't  go;  as  to  the  se- 
cond, they  will  burn  up  the  country  rather  than  submit  to  it ; 
as  to  the  fourth,  it  is  not  to  be  thought  of ;  and,  therefore^ 
it  must  be  the  third. 

Squ.  Thim. — So  say  I,  and,  therefore,  I  am  labouring, 
first  to  persuade  them  not  to  marry,  and  next  to  teach  them 
how  to  avoid  having  live  children,  if  they  be  married, 
and. . . • 

Sir  G,     (Aside.) — What  a  d fool  it  is! 

Squ.  Thim have  we  not,  under  our  eyes,  a  proof 

of  the  necessity  of  my  labours  ?  For,  look  at  this  young 
woman,  who  is  going  to  be  married  to-morrow,  and  who, 
|)robably,  without  my  lessons,  might  breed  twenty-one  poor 
creatures  as  her  mother  has  done. 

Sir  G.— Ah  !  a  striking  instance  indeed,  and  all  this 
litter  is  to  be  kept,  too,  out  of  my  estate,  or  my  farms  and 
my  woods  are  to  be  burnt ! 

Squ.  Thim. — A  man  may  as  well  have  no  property: 
it  is  not  property :  you  have  your  estate  in  common  with 
this  devouring  herd. 

Sir  G. — Aye,  and  they  leave  me  here,  you  see,  with 
hardly  a  bit  of  bread  to  put  in  my  mouth. 

Squ.  Thim. — It  is  not  only  your  duty,  then,  but  your 
interest  also,  to  aid  me  in  my  labours ;  and,  when  my  es- 
say is  finished,  which  in  this  tranquil  abode  will  be  in 
about  a  month  you  will  see  that  procreation  will  be  effec- 
tually checked. 

^  Sir  G. — No  doubt ;  but,  in  the  meanwhile  this  brace  of 
breeders  get  together.  Now,  Tm  a  practical  man  ;  I  hold 
that  an  ounce  of  prevention  is  worth  a  pound  of  cure ;  and, 
therefore,  Tm  for  sending  the  girl  away,  and  to-night  too. 

Squ.  Thim. — To-night! 

Sir  G. — Yes,  to-night,  and  I  shall  want  your  assist- 
ance. 
J.  :Squ.  Thim. — My  assistance  I 

Sir  G. — You  know,  my  dear  Thimble,  what  a  regard 
I  have  for  you,  and  how  sincerely  I  admire  your  talents. 
You  are  fit  for  the  highest  posts  in  the  state.  You  only 
want  to  be  in  parliament  to  make  your  surprising  talents 


282  Tw6*i»ENNY  Tra«h- 

known;  and  when  I  am  made  a  peer,  you  shall  take  my 
place. 

Squ.  Thtm.  {Getting  up  and  taking  him  by  the 
hand,) — ^Thank  you,  thank  you ;  I  always  thought  that 
this  would  be  the  case  ;  but. ... 

Sill  G. — What  I  intend  is  this  ;  to  get  a  post-chaise 
and  four  horses  over  here  at  midnight ;  clap  her  and  you 
into  it,  and  let  them  carry  you  off  like  the  wind,  to  London,, 
where  you  can  deposit  her  at  my  house  at  Pimp-place,  un- 
der the  care  of  little  Panber,  who,  you  know,  breathes 
only  through  my  nostrils. 
1    Squ.  Thim. — But,  what  would  the  world  say  '? 

Sir  G.  —  World  !  Did  you  ever  know  the  world  find 
"wrong  any -thing  done  by  a  man  with  forty  thousand  a  year 
in  land  ? 

'^  Squ.  Thim. — But,  I  have  not  forty  thousand  a  year,, 
and  should  never  dare  show  my  face  again  ;  for  the  news- 
papers. ...  . "; 

Sir  G. — A  handful  of  guineas  would liribe  them  all  to 
silence.     However,  if  you  do  not  choose  to  oblige  me. .  . . 

Squ.  Thim. — Pray  do  not  put  it  in  that  way,  I  do  choose 
it;  but,  let  us  take  a  little  time  to  think  of  it. 

Sir  G. — And  they  get  to  breeding  in  the  meanwhilei.^^^ 

Squ.  Tfiti^.— Besides  I  meant  to  stay  here"  to  finish  my 
jessay.-''-^-----  •-■••.  "'    '-.;"';'  •;':;- 

Sir  G.-^That's  out  of  the  question,  for  I  m^tt^'td  sfHtA 
the  house  tip  to-morrow,  and  to  go  and  live  with  my  friends 
a  few  days,  till  I  go  to  London.^  'I  ^'^  ^-"^^"^^  -'"^ 

'i^-'^.QU.  Thim. — ^You  know,  dear  Sir  Gripe,  that  it  would 
he  violation,  that  it  would  be  assault  at  the  least ;  and  that 
there  would  be  such  an  outcry;  and  then. ... 
'  Sir  G. — Very  true,  very  true,  yoii  are  right,  and  great  as 
will  be  the  evil  to  my  estate  and  to  my  country,  I  must, 
tipon  reflection,  give  up  my  intention,  and  let  the  devouring 
4evils  breed  away. 
fJ-'iJJ^QtT'.'TiiiM. — I  hope  you  don't  think,  that. ... 

•  Sir  G. — Oh,  no,  no,  no,  no!  not  at  all,  not  at  al?. 
You're  quite  right;  you're  quite  light;  and  I  really  am 
■glad  that  you  refused ;  for  I  now  see  the  danger.  But, 
how  will  you  get  back  ?  ^        ' 

Squ.  Thim. — Oh!   I  shall  go  off  by  the  mstil,  which 
istops  hercj  at  the  Grindum  Arms.  /  Hi<^*^ 

'     Sir  G.— And  what  time  shall  you  get  info  town  ? 
\   Squ,  Thim. — Why,  let  me  see,  the  mail  comes  aboAt 
fette,  and  I  shall  get  in  about  six«  .  ^' 


.  ,:  1st  June,  1831.  T  283^ 

Sir  G. — Well,  then,  as  I  have  a  d"eal  to  do  here,  Til 
send  you  a  letter  down  to  the  farm,  which,  when  you  get 
out  of  the  coach  in  Piccadilly,  you'll  be  so  good  as  to  carry 
directly  (it's  in  your  way)  to  Pimp-place,  and  give  it  to 
little  Pander>  But  you  11  he  Sure  to  deliver  it  without  a 
moment's  delay.  lo  '^d:  ijlijS  i  as  rOd     .?u  >>: 

Squ.  Tiiim. — Certainly.  (Rising  and  gathering  up 
his  papers.)  You'll  send  down  the  letter  by  ten  or  eleven 
o'clock.  {Pulls  out  his  zvatch.)  It  is  past  eight  now :  your 
servant,  Sir  Gripe.  [Exit  bowing. 

Sir  G. — {Looking  contemptuously  after  him.) — Oh  ! 
your  servant,  Mr*  Stitch-louse  !  Here's  a  pretty  scoundrel ! 
-He  has  openly  advised  women  to  procure  abortion,  which 
is  murder  ;  and  now  he  has  his  qualms  of  conscience  !  As 
Richard  says  of  Buckingham,  in  the  play,  *'  Til  henceforth 
deal  with  shorter-sighted  villains."  And  here  they  are 
at  hand,  in  the  three  respectable  personages  that  my  friend. 
Lord  Rottenborough,  has  had  down  at  his  election,  and 
-who  have  dropped  in  as  old  acquaintances,  on  their  way 
back  to  London.  They  will  have  no  scruples,  Til  warraikt 
them:  they  would  out  the  throats  of  their  own  mothers  for 
•a  crown  a  head.  [Exit^ 

i  ml  lai  ici        ACT  ///.vorr  u  h^A — .era; 

SCfiNE  1.— Mrs.  Birch's  C(?«cro-e:  Mrs.  Birch,  Betsy, 
.!■•;'  and  I>iCK,  ' —  "^     '-^ 

•Betsy. — And  see,  here  are  beautiful  floWfefg  tmi  ktiSt 
^Ma^rthd  has  sent  us  to  strew  up  to  the  church-door ;  and 
there  are  brothers  Tom  and  Jack  comings  and  many  more 
lad^,-  AAd  all  the  girls  in  the  village;  and  they  are  to  xvalk 
arm  in  arm  before  us;  and  do,  Richard,  look  at  these  tfue- 
lov€rs'-knots  that  Patty  Primrose  has  sent  me! 


.-J  i 


JMrs.  Birch.— And  look  at  this  fine  gammori'  of  b 
and  these  plums  that  Mrs.  Stiles  has  sent.         .       '       .. 

Dick. — -Ah!    she's   the  woinan !    and  now  I'lritf^  ga 
^honie  to  bed,  for  Fm  to  get  up  at  one  o'clock  to  carry  Squire 
'Thimble's  portmanteau  up  to  the  Grindum  Arm^i'''^ ^^'■\^^ 
.£ -Bet.— W^Il;  good  by ;  but  I  wish  'twas  over,  Ifor  itry 
heart  does  sink  so!'   •-  ^       *     _.  .  .\....^ 

-•  ■  I>iCK.— What  for?  Whie  ctff^iftlfe  afi^aid  off  -^^' 
*- ^B^T.— Why,  I'ft!i  so  afraid  that  something  will  happen  : 
it  seems  to  be  too  much  happiness;  and.  there's  that  shuck- 
•  ting  old  villain  sent  for  mother  and  yOu ;  arid  there's  the  rent 
-to  pay;  and  he's  swth  a  spiteful  monster,  and  so  cunning^^!^^ 
Dick.— But  what  can  the  villain  do  !  '""  c^-t^* 


"284  Two-PEKNY  Trash; 

Mrs.  Birch. — There,  never  mind  her  qualms :  go  home 
to  bed,  Richard,  for  you  must  be  tired  to  death.  (Exit  Dick.) 
And  now,  my  child,  let  us  go  to  bed  and  get  some  rest;  and, 
as  to  the  rent,  farmer  Stiles  says  that  old  rascal  shall  not 
turn  us  into  the  road,  if  he  turn  him  out  of  his  farm  for 
saving  us.  So,  as  I  told  the  old  skin-and-bone  miser,  the 
Lord  will  protect  the  widow  and  the  fatherless. 

SCENE  II. — A  Room  in  Gripe  Hall:  Sir  Gripe  and  the  three  Lon- 
don Bullies,  Bludgeon,  Guzzle,  and  Slang,  all  seated:  a 
bottle  of  gin  and  a  glass  on  the  table,  __    >.        > 

I  J,  Sir  Gripe. — You  know  where  the  cottage  is  ? 

Blud. — Yes,  w^e  came  by  it  in  the  morning,  and  saw  St 
young  chap  and  a  girl  at  the  door. 

Sir  G. — With  dark  hair  and  bright  eyes,  and  ...... 

Slang. — Yes,  a  nice  piece  enough. 
Sir  G. — She's  mad^  you  know.  : 

All. — Yes,  yes;  we  understand  all  about  it. 
Sir  G. — Here's  my  old  friend.   Bludgeon,  did  such  a 
job  for  me  once  before,  and  he  knows  I  paid  him  well. 
Blud. — Aye,  how  did  that  turn  out,  Sir  Gripe  ? 
Sir  G. — Very  well,  very  well:  she  got  quite  cured  in 
time ! 

Blud. — And  is  now.  upon  the  town;  for  I  met  her  ia 
Drury-lane  only  about  a  month  ago ;  but  so  altered ! 

Sir  G. — The  chaise  will  come  over  from  Rottenborough, 
and  will  be  at  the  corner  of  the  lane  just  at  twelve  o'clock. 
Blud. — We'll  knock  them  up  by  telling  that  the  intended 

is  taken  ill ;  and  then  seize  her,  and 

Guzzle. — Ram  a  handkerchief  into  her  mouth,  to  ... . 
Slang, — Tow,  or  cotton- wool,  is  better. 
Sir  G. — Give  the  two  post-boys  a  guinea  instead  of  a 
crown ;  and  be  sure  to  say  that  it  is  a  mad  woman  that  you 
are  taking  to  St.  Luke's. 

Blud. — Leave  that  to  us.  Sir. 

Sir  G. — One  of  you  ride  on  the  box,  and  the  other  two 
in  the  chaise ;  and,  when  you  come  to  Stains,  go  across  to 
Kingston,  and  lop  gently  along  till  you  get  to  Mrs.  Lynx's. 
Blud. — I  know  it,  you  know.  Sir  :  in  Dismal-laue  1 
Sir  G. — Yes,  the  same  place;   and    now  go  and  get 
some  supper,  and  then  I'll  give  you  money  to  pay  your  ex- 
penses on  the  road.  :•; 
Guzzle. — It  will  want  a  pretty  deal,  Sir:  four  horses, 
you  know,  and  two  post-boys,  and  'tis  dry  work,  as  the 
saying  is. 


1st  June,  1831.  285 

^;  Sir  G. — I  shall  be  in  town  the  day  after  to-morrow,  and, 
if  you  do  your  job  well,  I'll  give  you  five  guineas  a-piece. 

[They  go  out. 

Sir  G — {Calling  them  back.) — Oh!  here,  1  had  for- 
gotten :  have  you  got  pistols  ? 

Blud. — Look  here!  (Showing  them.) 
r-jSiR  G. — All's  right,  then.  [They  go  out:  he  rings, 

, ,.    .,  £nter  Barebose. 

"  'SiR^G. — Barebone,  take  this  letter  down  to  'Squire  Thim- 
ble,  at  farmer  Stiles's.  {Barebone  going.)  And,  do  you 
hear,  Barebone  ?  '^  r; 

Bare. — Sir. 

Sir  G. — If  anyone  call  to-morrow,  be  it  who  he  may,  tell? 
him,  or  her,  that  I  am  not  at  home ;  that  1  am  gone  to 
the  county- election,  to  work  in  the  cause  of  Parliamentary 
Reform.    What  o'clock  is  it  now,  Barebone  ? 

Bare. — 'Tis  a  good  bit  past  eleven,  Sir,  by  the  church 
clock.  [Exit  Barebone. 

Sir  G. — I'll  now  go  and  prime  these  fellows  with  mo- 
ney. Let  me  see:  they  will  be  at  Old  Moll's  about  eight; 
Thimble  will  be  in  about  six;  so  that  there  will  be  plenty  of" 
time  for  Pander  to  get  to  Old  Moll's  with  my  letter  of  iri-^ 
structions.  What  a  thing  is  forty  thousand  a  year  I  All 
these  devils  hate  me;  nay,  despise  me,  and  they  crouch  to 
me,  like  so  many  spaniels !  Yet,  in  one  thing,  I'm  a  slave^ 
too :  I  know  that  this  Reform  of  Parliament  will  strip  me 
of  my  power;  I  detest  it  accordingly,  and  yet  I'm  com- 
pelled to  work  for  it.  ^^ 

SCENE  ni.^ — Stiles's  Parlour :  Ti^imble  packing-  up  his  papers,. 

Enter  Barebone. 

Bare. — A  letter,  Sir,  from  Sir  Gripe. 

Squ.  Thim. — What,  you're  going  to  shut  the  hall  up 
to-morrow,  are  you,  young  man  I 

'Bare. — Not  that  I  know  of,  Sir;  I  have  not  heard  any- 
thing about  it. 

Squ.  Thim.— No!  {Exit  Barebone.)  This  is  a  lie, 
then,  invented  to  get  rid  of  me,  when  he  found  that  I  would 
not  be  his  pimp.  But  {opening  the  Letter)  let's  see  what  he 
says  here.  *^  My  dear  Thimble,  I'm  sorry  that  imperious 
"  circumstances  separate  us  before  I  gather  half  what  I 
^^  ought  from  your  instructive  conversation.  But  bear  ia 
*^  mind  what  I  said  about  the  seat,  which  will  surely  be 
**  yours.  Pray  do  not  fail  to  deliver  the  letter  to  Pan- 
"  der  the'very  moment  that  you  arrive;  and  believe  me  al-» 
*^  ways  truly  yours,  **  Gripe  Grindum/*^^^ 


^  Enter  Mrs.  Stii^es,  with  eggs,  ^'c.       -r 


286  Two^PENNY  Trash; 

,b*^  P.  S.  If  Pander  should  not  be  up,  go  up  to  his  bed- 
^'-room  and  give  hira  the  letter  ;  for  it  is  of  the  greatest  pos- 
**  sible  importance ;  and  a  minute's  delay  might  be  ruinous 
*'  to  the  cause  of  Reforna."  What !  a  minute's  delay !  why, 

then 

Enter  Mrs.  Stii^s. 

Mrs.  Stiles. — Won't  you  take  something,  Sir,  before 
you  set  off?  'Tis  a^sharpish  night,  and  you  won't  get  any- 
thing upon  the  road. 

Squ.  Thim. — Thank  you  ;  Fll  take  an  egg. 

Mrs.  Stiles.. — And  a  glass  of  something,  Sir?       \^Exii} 

Squ.  Thim. — **  A  minute's  delay  ruinous  to  the  cause  of 
Reform  !*'  "  There's  more  in  this  than  meets  the  ear." 
(^Looking  hard  at  the  letter.) 

"^     ^^  Enter  Mrs.  Stii^e 

Squ,  Thim. — What  is  it  o'clock,  good  woman  I 
*^Mrs..  Stiles, — Just  struck  twelve,  Sir.  [Exit- 

Squ.  Thim. — I've  a  great  mind  to  open  this  letter. 
What  secrets  ought  they  to  keep  from  me  about  the  cause 
of  reform  ?  The  rascals,  who  owe  the  power  they  have  to 
me.  I  can  do  it  up  again  ;  so,  as  Old  Knowell  says  in  the 
play,  *'  By  your  leave,  soft  wax.  (Opens  the  letter  and 
reads  to  himself,)  Oh !  the  d—- — d.  .perfidious  villain. 
{Reads  out)  "  That  stupid  coxcomb.  Thimble,  is  here, 
and  was  going  to  make  my  house  his  study ;  and  I  w^as 
afraid  I  must  have  swinged  it  in  order  to  get  him  out*.  H^, 

will  carry  you  this  letter go  over  to  old  Moll  ^  .U  . 

three  trusty  fellows post-chaise  and  four start 

from  here  at  twelve  o'clock  at  night."     Oh !  the  d — — d 
villain.   {A  screaming  in  the  kitchen :  he  runs  out.) 

SCJENE  IV. — The  Farm  Kitchen.    The  Farmer,  ?tis  wife,  men,  cmd 
boys,     A  little  boy  and  girl  o/Mrs.  Birch's  crying. 

~  Little  Boy. — And  there's  poor  mammy  lying  dead 
upon  the  floor,  and  there's  little  Harry  and  little  Sally  cry-' 
icg  and  screaming.     O  Lord,  what  shall  we  do  ! 

Little    Girl. — And  poor   sister   Betsy's   gone!     Oh' 
dear,  oh  dear ! 

j&n^tfr  Patty  Primrose.  ' 

Patty. — Three  fellows  come  and  knocked  at  the  door,  put, 

a  pistol  to  their  heads,  and  dragged  Betsy  away;  and  ..  .^^ 

£w^er  Mary  Violet. 
Mary. — ^They  took  her  off  in  a  post-chaise;    mother 
looked  out  of  the  window,  heard  a  screaming,  and  she 


,  JsT  June,  1831.  287 

knowed  Betsey's  voice,  and  saw  them  go  up  the  lane  as  fast 

a$  they  could  drive,  and i  Vtn  a'o'ioiil 

Dick  conies  dawn-stah'S  in  his  troivsers  and  shirt. 
ccSqu.  Thim. — They're  g^ne  to  London  with  her,  I  tell 
you.     I  have  a  letter  here  {Dick  runs  out  of  the  house)  that 
I  have  opened :  I  will  tell  you  all  about  it  by  and  by ;  but 
get  horses  and  go  after  them;. i)c.jjeyer  will  yeu  see  her 
again.  / '^  .  -rr;>l  ''•*:=>  '— .  <  • 

Stiles. — Boys,  men,  all  of  you,  and  get  the  nag,  and, 
Tom,  you  get  on  as  fast  as  you  can.  •:  j 

>.  Mrs,  Stiles. — I'll  go  up  to  poor  Mrs.  Birch,  and  keep 
her  as  quiet  as  I  can.  \^'j..j   ;. 

Patty. — There's  plenty  of  neighbours  there  now.-  ■  i-    "> 
Mrs.  Stiles. — Give  me  some  vinegar,  and  ril  take  my 
hartshorn.     Ah  I  'tis  that  old  villain  at  the  halJ.  — .•r »  f  ^ 

[Exit  with  the  girls ^ 

.j^Sfjij.  Thim. — {Aside,)— Y\\  stay  and  see  the  upshot  of 

this.  ...  ^  '  '*-■  -^^ 

Stiles.  —  Bad  affair,  Sir :  black  work  somewhere*  ficxj^e. 
Sir,  youVe  no  hand  in't. 

Squ.  Thim. — If  you'll  come  into  the  other  room,  J'U' 
show  you^  farmer,  that  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  it^J  jri'^« 

Enter  Last. 
Stiles."— There's  that  old  villain  has  ...... 

Last.— I've  heard  all  about  it.     Dame  Violet  came  up 
to   the  village   screaming,    and  Jack    Harrow,    and   Ned' 
Maple,  and  a  dozen  more  got  up,  and  run  off,  one  after 
another,  long  before  Dick  came.  •  ./.yiii  o  ^?o. 

Stiles. — And  there's  that  poor  fellow  without  a  shoe 
to's  foot,  or  a  hat  upon's  head :  his  feet  will  be  cut  all  to 
pieces ;  and  how  be  they  ever  to  overtake  a  post-chaise  and 
foiu:  ? 

Squ.  Thim.! — Com.e  into  the  parlour,  and  Til  show  you 
the  letters,  and  explain  the  whole  affair  to  you. 

[The]/  go  into  the  parlour. 

SC£N£  V. — A  Bed-room  in  Grindum-hall :  Sir  Gripe ^"z^^  got  €ut 
of  a  filthy  bed,  on  a  stump-bedstead.  j  pjf[ 

Sir  G. — {Knocking  on  the  floor,) — What's  o'clock,  I 
wonder? 

J^w^^  Barebone*  y^ 

Sir  G. — What's  o'clock,  Barebone?  X 

Bare. — A  little  past  four,  Sir.  [Exit, 

.Sir  G. — As  neat  a  job  as  ever  I  did!     There's  that 
d— — -d  fool,  Thimble,  carrying  my  letter,  and  thinking  it 


288  Two-penny  Trash, 

an  honour ;  there's  the  girl  hastening  to  old  Moll's  ;  and 
there's  my  trusty  steward,  Scut,  coming  to  bundle  the  saucy 
old  mother  into  the  road.  {A  shouting  at  a  distance.) 
What's  that?  Master  Swing's  not  coming  again,  to*  be 
sure.  {Knocks  upon  the  floor ^ 

Entei"  Barebone. 
,  Sir  G. — What  noise  is  that,  Barebone? 
Bare. — I  don't  know,  Sir.    It  is  up  in  the  turnpike-road* 
Sir  G. — Go  out  and  learn  what  it  means.    {Exit  Bare- 
hone^     They'll  get  no  money  here,  at  any  rate ;  and  as  to 
victuals  and  drink,  I  set  even  their  guts  at  defiance.     They 
say  they  won't  live  upon  potatoes,  and  they'll  not  find  even 

them  here. 

Enter  Barebone,  in  haste  and  in  a  fright. 

Bare. — Oh  Lord,  Sir.  ^ 

./Sir  G. — What's  the  matter? 

Bare. — Oh,  Sir!  it's  a  great  mob,  with  big  sticks  in  their 
hands,  bringing  a  post-chaise  along,  and 

Sir  G.-— a  post-chaise ! 

Bare. — Yes,  Sir ;  and  Peter  Skeleton  heard  them,  as 
they  came  through  the  village,  swear  that  they'd  kill  yoa. 

Sir  a— Kill  me  ?     For  what  ? 

Bare. — I  don't  know,  indeed.  Sir;  but  Peter  says  they 
said  something  about  Betsy  Birch ;  and  they  have  got  one 
of  the  gentlemen  that  was  here  last  night,  with  his  arms 
tied  behind  him.  \^Exit. 

Sir  G. — Oh^  the  devil!  To  fly  is  impossible.  There 
are  some  hiding-places  in  this  old  house.  There's  no  time 
to  lose.  [Exit. 

SCENE  VL^Tke    Farm-house:    Squire  Thimble, 
j.,  (-    ;;:;..   -  Last,   and  Stiles. 

Squ.  Thim. — Well,  gentlemen,  I'm  glad  you're  satisfied 
that  I  have  had  no  hand  in  it,  and  that ^ 

Enter  Ned  Maple  out  of  breath, 

Ned. — We've  got  urn,  we've  got  um  ;  and  there's   Betsy 
in  the  chaise,  and  poor  Dick,  with  the  blood  running  dowa^^ 
his  breast,  holding  Betsy  in  his  arms;  and 

Last. — But  where  are  they? 

Ned. — Jack  Harrow  and  I  came  up  with  them  first,  and 
Jack  knocked  down  one  of  the  post-chaise  boys,  and  I 
knocked  the  fellow^  ofi*  the  box ;  and 

Stiles. — But  where  was  this? 

Ned. — And  then  Dick  came  up,  and  pulled  the  chaise  door 
window  open,  and  the  fellows  shot  at  him,  and  the  shot  gi-az«d^^ 


1st  June,  1831.     v  289 

his  breast;  and  Tom  Stiles,  your  nephew,  then  pulled  the 
fellow  out,  and  laid  on  upon  him  till  he  could  not  stir  ;  and 
Harry  Hedger  pulled  f  other  fellow  out,  and  basted  him  over 
eyes  and  limbs ;  and 

Last. — But  where  was  this  ?  And  who  stopped  them  '? 

Ned. — Why,  one  of  their  horses  fell  down  at  the  bottom 
of  Break-neck'  hill,  and  broke  both  his  fore-legs,  and  so  we 
came  up  with  them  ;  and  we  tied  the  arms  behind  the  fellow^ 
that  was  upon  the  box ;  and  we  left  the  other  two  crying 
murder;  and  Betsy  was  fainted,  and  Dick  thought* she  was 
dead,  and  he  swore  he*d  kill  every  man  of  them ;  but  she 
came  to  again ;  and  he  got  her  into  his  arms,  and  there  he 
Slicks,  and  you  can't  get  a  word  out  of  him. 

Stiles.  —  Poor  fellow^  his  feet  must  be  cut  all  to  pieces  ! 

Last. — But  where  are  they  now  ? 

Ned. — They  be  coming  round  the  lane,  with  two  horses 
in  the  chaise.     Hark!  Don't  you  hear  them? 

Last. — This  gentleman  has  told  us  that  they  were  going 
to...... 

Ned. — The  chap  that  we've  got  with  his  arms  tied  has 
confessed  all  about  it ;  and  see  here  {pulling  out  a  parcel 
of  gold)  is  the  money  that  old  Gripe  gave  them. 

Stiles. — There  they  come,  there  they  come!  don't  you 
hear  them  ? 

Last. — Come,  let's  go  up  to  the  widow's  and  meet  them. 
(^All  go  out  hut  Thimble.) 

"  Squ.  Thim. — So,  then,  this  old  hypocritical  rascal;  this 
ungrateful  wretch,  to  whom  I  have  been  political  pimp  for 
twenty  or  thirty  long  years,  and  who  now  calls  me  coxcomb, 
fool,  and  stitch -lou se :  this  pretended  patriot ;  this  weather- 
cock in  politics;  this  haughty  aristocrat,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  noisy  demagogue,  is,  at  last,  about  to  have  something 
like  justice  inflicted  upon  him. 

SCENE  VIII. — ne  Widow* s  Cottage:  the  crowd  coming  to  it  with 
the  chaise i  and  with  Bludgeon  with  his  arms  tied  behind  him : 
all  the  lane  full  of  people,  and  crowding  round  the  door  of  the 
cottage, 

Mrs.  Birch.  Let  me  come,  let  me  come  !  oh,  my  dear 
child,  my  dearest  child  !  God  Almighty  be  praised  ! 

Dick.  {Getting  out  of  the  chaise,  and  lifting  out 
Betsy  in  his  arms,) — Now,  do  make  room,  good  folks; 
you'll  stifle  her.  «  J«"i  *^^'  '^  ^ 


290         •  Two-penny  Trash;       , 

Several. — How  pale  she  is  !  How  bloody  poor  Richard 
i$!  Oh!  the  villains;  oh,  the  murderers!  Oh!  that  old 
villain  Grind um ! 

Mrs.  Stiles.— rThere,  Richard,  go  up  stairs^  and  rest  a 
little,  and  FU  send  your  things  up  here  for  you  to  dr^s  for 
church. 

Last. — Now,  lads  and  girls,  all  go  home,  and  get, ready 
for  the  wedding. 

.  Several  Men. — Yes,  but  we  have  got  to  swing  old 
Grindum  first. 

Ned. — ^And  what  are  we  to  do  with  this  fellow  I 
Last. — Put  him  into  the  post-chaise  with  his  arms  tied, 
and  send  him  back  to  Rottenborough. 

Ned.  (Pulling  out  the  gold,) — And  here,  Mrs^.  Birch, 
is  something  to  pay  old  Scut  with,  when  he  come§  to  take 
your  cow,  and  bundle  you  into  the  road. 

Many  Men. — There,  girls,  go  home,  and  we'll  go  and 
swing  old  Grindum. 

\_The  girls  disperse,  and  the  men  and  boys 
go  towards  the  hall. 

SCENE  VIII. — A  Room  in  the  Hall:  Ghindum  comings  out  at 

a  trap' door. 

Sir  G.— Nothing  short  of  the  devil  can  find  me  here* 
This  is  a  place  where  the  Catholic  priests  used  to  hid§r  in 
the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

Mob.  {In  the  court-yard,  speaking  to  Barebone.) — 
^Tis  a  lie,  'tis  a  lie,  we  know  he's  here,  and  if  you  don't 
show  us  where  he  is,  well  swing  you. 

Bare, — Fll  go  and  look  again;  but  Vm  almost  sure  he's 
gone  away. 

Writer  Barebone  to  Sir  Gripe. 

Sir  G. — Hark!  they're  going  to  get  straw  to  put  in  the 
low  rooms,  to  set  the  house  on  fire ! 

Bare. — Pray  go  out  to  them.  Sir!  Hark!  they  are 
coming  up  stairs. 

Enter  Jive  or  six. 

All. — Oh!  here  you  are!  Come  along.— (T^cy  seize 
him  and  drag  him  away,) 

SCENE  IX,— The  Court-yard. 
Many.— Swing  him  !  Swing  him  ! 
Others. — Horse-pond  himi    Horse-pond  him!    Down 
to  the  farm  with  him^  and  horse-pond  him ! 


1st  June,  1831.  '         291 

SCENE  X. — 7%ff  Farm-house  Kitchen:  Squire  Thimble,  Stilus, 
Mrs.  Stiles,  and  Last  :  to  thefn  a  Bey  running. 

Boy.— Here  they  come  with  old  Grindum,  with  a  rope 
about  his  middle,  to  draw  him  through  the  horse-pond. — 
(All  run  out  but  Thimble ^  who  opens  the  window  and 
looks  into  the  yard,) 

Mob.  (Three  or  four  hundred,) — Come,  drown  him! 
Drag' him  through!  Drown  him! 

Stiles. — No,  no!  you  must  not  do  that 

Sir  G.— Stiles,  I  shall  hold  you  answerable  for  this. 

Tom  Birch. — And  I  hold  you  answerable  for  trying  to 
kill  my  poor  sister,  and  for  paying  fellows  to  shoot  Dick 
Hazle. 

All.- — Swing  him  !  Pond  him  ! 

[They  drag  him  across,  and  he  sinks  and 
comes  up  all  over  filth. 

Squ,  Thim. — ^There  he  rises  *'  in  all  the  majesty  of 
mud."  A  suitable  head  he  has  now  to  be  the  seat  of  a 
coronet! 

Tom  Birch.— There,  sneak  away  to  London,  where 
the  wretches  will  still  bow  and  scrape  to  you.  {He  slinks 
aWay  out  of  the  yard.)  We'll  swing  you,  if  you  come 
here  again. 

Mrs.  Stiles:— Oh!  if  there  ben't  the  bells  ringing: 
they  be  coming  from  church :  let's  all  go  and  wish  them  joy. 

SCENE  XL— 7%c  IVidow^s  Cottage-door :  a  great  crowd  assembled: 
Stiles,  Last,  Mrs.  Stiles,  and  Squire  Thimble.  Enter  the 
Bridegroom  and  Bridey  with  their  friends:  and  all  get  into  a 
sort  of  circle, 

Mrs.  Stiles. — J  wish  you  joy,  Betsy  ! 

All. — ^Wish  you  joy,  Richard !  Wish  you  joy,  Betsey ! 

Mrs.  Birch. — They  thank  you  from  the  bottom  of  their 
hearts,  as  I  do ;  and  Tm  only  sorry  that  my  house  is  too 
small  to  entertain  every  one  of  you. 

Last. — In  our  thanks,  we  must  not  forget  this  gentleman 
{turning  to  Squire  Thimble);  for,  if  it  had  not  been  for 
him,  we  should  not  have  known  which  way  the  post-chaise 
was  gone. 

Squ.  Thim. — I  am  very  happy  to  iTave  been  instru- 
mental in  producing  this  result;  but  my  conscience  will  not 
let  me  take  my  leave  without  offering  to  this  ceuple  one 
piece  of  advice.  .   * 

Dick  and  Betsy. — Thank  you,  Sir. 


292  Two-penny  Trask. 

SgUIRE  TniMBLE. 

Pray,  youn^  folks,  of  procreation, 

Of  breeding  children,  shun  the  woes  ; 

•*  Check  the  surplus  population  ;" 
**^  Restraint  that's  morar*  interpose, 

Dick, 

Of  children  full  that  I  my  quiver 
Might  have,  you  heard' the  parson  pray  : 
,  Can  you,  then,  where  God's  the  giver, 

Behold  the  gift,  and  turn  away  ? 

Betsy, 

Di'nt  he  pray  for  God  to  bless  me. 
And  make  me. fruitful  as  the  vine  ; 

And  charge  my  Richard  to  caress  me,  ^ 
And,  sick  or  well,  not  to  repine  ? 

At>L  THE  Young  Men  and  Girls. 

Hang  that  Thimble,  what  can  he  know  ? 

The  Bible  bids  us  to  increase  : 
Back  to  Jjondon,  then,  may  he  go  ; 

And  let  us  live  and  love  in  peace. 


THE  END. 


[Printed  bj  Wm,  Cgbbett,  Johnson's-court,  Fleei-strwt.  3 


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BRIGHAM  YOUNG  UNIVERSITY 


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No.  1.  Vol.  11. 


COBBETT'S 


TWO-PENNY  TRASH 


For  the  Month  of  July,  1831. 


TO  THE 

LABOURERS  OF  ENGLAND,  ON  THE  PROJECTS 

FOR  GETTING  THEM  OUT  OF  THEIR 

NATIVE  COUNTRY. 

Ktnsingtony  25  th  June,  1831. 

My  Friends, 

The  London  newspapers  tell  us,  that  the  newspapers  m 
the  country  are  full  of  ^'  forebodings  as  to  the  designs  of  the 
labourers;''  and  the  ^^  Morning  Chronicle  ^'^  oi  the  25th 
June,  having  told  us  this,  adds  these  words,  "  There  is  an 
*^  article  in  the  Kent  Herald,  of  Thursday,  which  is  worthy 
**  of  particular  attention.  Dearly,  do  we  fear,  will  England 
^^  yet  rue  the  having,  of  late  years,  legislated  only  for  the 
*'  higher  classes,  and  abandoned  the  lower  to  every  de- 
'^  scrip tion  of  tyranny T  This  Morning  Chronicle  is  a 
paper  on  the  side  of  the  ministers,  and,  therefore,  it  says 


London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street  \ 
and  sold  \y^  all  Booksellers. 


2  Two-PENHTY  Trash  ; 

what  it  pleases :  if  I,  who  am  on  the  side  of  no  men  in 
power,  were  to  write  this,  I  should  be  prosecuted  for  it. 
However,  why  does  not  this  paper  give  us  this  famous  article 
from  the  Kent  Herald ;  and  why  does  it  not  give  us  some 
of  those  dismal  forebodings  of  the  country  newspapers  with 
regard  to  your  designs  ?  I,  however,  want  no  information 
upon  the  subject,  for  I  know  your  designs,  and  I  highly 
approve  of  them ;  namely,  ^rst,  to  secure  for  yourselves, 
in  return  for  your  labour,  a  belly-full  of  meat  and  bread  ; 
and,  nexty  to  obtain  some  good  wholesome  beer,  to  wash 
them  down ;  and  also  to  obtain  good  and  decent  clothes, 
and  clean  bedding,  such  as  your  grandfathers  had.  These 
are  your  designs,  and  God  send  that  they  may  be  accom- 
plished, instead  of  being  a  subject  of  "  ominous  fore- 
bodings.''  But  now,  upon  thesie  projects  for  getting  a  part 
,  of  you  out  of  the  country.  Those  that  are  for  these  pro- 
jects say,  that  you  are  too  numerous ;  that  you  breed  too 
fast ;  and  that  there  is  not  work  enough  for  you;  and  they 
say  this  at  the  very  moment  when  the  farmers,  all  over  the 
country,  are  complaining  that  they  shall  not  be  able  to  get 
in  the  harvest  without  the  assistance  of  Irish  labourers !  I 
have  often  proved  that  there  is  plenty  of  employment  for 
you ;  that  the  farmers  wish  to  give  you  that  employment, 
but  that  they  have  not  the  money  to  give  you ;  and  this  has 
also  been  stated  recently  by  Lord  Stanhope  before  a  com- 
mittee in  the  House  of  Lords.  The  cause  of  the  farmers 
not  having  money  enough  to  give  you  is,  that  they  are  com- 
pelled to  pay  tithes  and  taxes  to  an  enormous  extent ;  and 
you  want  higher  wages  than  you  otherwise  would  want, 
because  you  pay  taxes  on  your  malt,  hops,  sugar,  soap, 
candles,  tobacco,  and,  in  short,  on  every-thing  that  you 
consume;  while  the  numerous  enclosure-bills  have  taken 
from  almost  the  whole  of  you  the  means  of  keeping  cow,  or 
pig,  or  goose. 


1st  July,  1831.  $ 

I  have  frequently  told  you,  that  there  is  a  man  of  the 
name  of  Malthus,  who  is  a  church  parson,  who  was  the 
great  inventor  of  the  doctrine,  that  it  is  your  breeding  so 
fast  that  is  the  cause  of  your  misery.     This  man  has  long 
been  a  great  favourite  with  the  greater   part  of  the  law- 
makers and  ministers,  and  it  has  recently  come  to  light, 
that  he  has  been,  and  is  in  the  pay  of  the  government,  and 
that  he   has    been  receiving   and    is  receiving  a  hundred 
pounds  a  year  for  his  literary  services.     That  which  he  has 
received  would  have  wholly  maintained  nine  or  ten  labourers' 
families.     Such  transactions  as  this  forms  part  of  the  cause 
of  your  misery ;  bu4,  though  this  is  as  clear  as  day-light  to 
me  and  to  every   man  of  sense  in  the  kingdom,  still  the 
schemers  are  at  work  to  get  some  of  you  away ;  to  get  some 
of  you  out  of  that  country  in  which  you  were  born,  while 
they  suffer  swarms  of  Italians,  Jews,  and  Germans,  hurdy- 
gurdy  grinders,  broom-sellers,  and  Scotch  pedlars,  to  swarm 
over  the  land,  like  lice  upon  the  body  of  a  diseased  animal. 
They  suifer  all  these  to  remain  and  wander  whither  they 
like,  and   are  busy  about  nothing  but  getting  out  of  the 
country  those  who  till  the  land  and  make  the  clothes  and  the 
houses.     Swarms  of  pensioners  and  sinecure-holders,  paid 
out  of  the  taxes ;  swarms  of  retired  clerks,   and  military 
officers,  and  doctors ;  swarms  of  idlers,  of  all  descriptions., 
they  suffer  to  remain,  and  wish  to  get  rid  only  of  those  who 
do  the  work,  and  who,  if  necessary,  are  able  to  defend  the 
country.     In  a  former  number  I  endeavoured  to  amuse  you, 
under  the  form  of  a  farce,  with  an  exhibition  of  the  follv  ' 
of  these  people.     Upon  the  publication  of  that  farce,  a 
man  calling  himself  Edward  Ludlow,  who  is  a  partisan 
of  these  getters -rid  of  the  people,  wrote  me  a  very  abusive 
letter,  at  the  close  of  which  he  put  to  me  five  questions 
relative  to  population.     I  answered  these  questions,  which 
contained  the  doctrine  of  the  whole  crew  ;  and  those  ques- 

B  2 


4  -   .  Two-PEi^NY  Trash  5 

tions,  together  with  my  answer,  I  will  now  lay  before  you. 
I  pray  you  to  read  the  whole  with  great  attention ,  and  to 
hand  it  about  from  one  to  the  other ;  and  when  you  have 
read  this,  I  shall  have  other,  and,  to  you,  still  more  im- 
portant matter  to  lay  before  you. 

«  LUDLOW'S  QUESTIONS." 

**  1.  Stock  a  farm  of  1000  acres,  of  the  richest  pasture  land,  with 
•*  one  breeding  pair  of  the  ox,  horse,  and  sheep  tribes  of  animals  ; 
*•'  leave  them  to  multiply,  in  obedience  to  the  unrestrained  instincts 
'*  of  nature,  and  will  they  not  multiply  until  the  said  pasture  is 
^'  unable  to  maintain  the  augmented  numbers  otherwise  than  in  a 
*'  state  of  the  most  severe  privation  under  which  animal  life  can 
**  possibly  exist? 

"  2.  Would  not  the  same  result  inevitably  occur  if  the  whole 
"  island  of  Great  Britain  were  of  the  richest  pasture,  and  similarly 
*'  stocked  ? 

*'  3.  To  keep  down  the  mouths  on  his  pasture  to  a  level  with  its 
*'  capacity  to  feed  them,  does  not  the  grazier  have  recourse  to  va- 
*'  rious  violent  means  :  such  as  slaughtering  the  animals  of  all 
*'  ages,  removing  them  away  from  his  land,  incapacitating  them 
*'  from  breeding,  by  separating  the  sexes,  and  by  other  means? 
**  And  if  he  were  not  so  to  do,  would  not  his  farm  inevitably  in 
^'  time  be  overstocked  ? 

''  4.  Is  not  the  multiplication  of  all  classes  of  animal  nature, 
**  biped  and  quadruped,  or  man  and  beast,  governed  by  the  very 
**  same  laws  or  principles? 

'*  5.  If  the  aforesaid  violent  means  of  physical  prevention,  ap- 
*'  plied,  as  aforesaid,  to  the  multiplication  of  four-legged  creatures, 
*'  cannot  be  applied  to  that  of  two-legged  creatures,  will  not  the 
**  latter  inevitably  overstock  the  country,  unless  their  excessive 
"  multiplication  be  prevented  by  some  moral  restraint  thereon? 

**  When  you  show  that  you  clearly  understand  the  preceding 
*^  very  simple  questions,  and  the  proper  answers  to  them,  I  may 
**  probably  propound  some  others  which  may  lead  to  the  elements 
**  of  the  momentous,  complex,  and  beautiful  science,  that  treats  of 
**  the  multiplication  of  the  human  species,  viewed  with  reference 
**  to  its  highest  attainable  state  of  well-being. 

"  You  are  at  liberty  to  publish  this  letter,  but  1  guess  you  will 
**  take  good  care  to  do  no  such  thing. 

*'  EDWARD  LUDLOW." 

''  COBBETT'S  ANSWER.'* 

Now,  nasty  feelosofer,  I  answer  the  four  first  questions 

with  a  YES ;  but  the  fifth  I  answer  with  a  NO.     Here 

we  have,  then,  the  grand  argument  of  the  shallow  and 

nasty  beasts  I     Here  we  ha^e  the  basis  of  their  **  momen^ 


I 


1st  July,  1831,  5 

tous,  cotoplex,  and  beautiful  science."  The  nasty  crea- 
tures know,  that  nobody  can  deny  the  truth  of  their  obser- 
vations, as  they  apply  to  stocky  kept  upon  a  farm ;  and 
not  being  able  to  discriminate  between  that  case  and  the 
case  of  a  nation^  they  think  that  their  conclusion  is  unan- 
swerable, and  they  rush  on  to  it  with  all  the  eagerness  and 
glee  of  a  conceited  fool  who  imagines  that  he  has  disco- 
vered some  hitherto-hidden  idea  that  lie  is  bringing  forth. 

If  the  mind  of  this  fellow  were  not  as  stupid  as  it  is 
nasty,  he  would  have  perceived  that  there  is  no  analogy 
in  the  two  cases;  that  a  nation,  or  people,  have  to  provide 
for  their  own  wants,  have  to  create  by  their  own  skill, 
care,  and  toil,  that  which  they  eat,  drink,  wear,  and  are 
warmed  and  lodged  with  ;  whereas  the  stock  upon  a  farm 
have  their  wants  provided  for  by  others;  they  create  no^ 
thing  ;  they  use  no  skill,  no  care ;  they  labour  not  at  all ; 
but  have  every-thing  provided  for  them  by  the  skill  and  la- 
*bour  of  man,  and  the  labour  of  those  other  animals  that 
man  calls  in  to  his  assistance. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  how  this  nasty-minded  fellow, 
resting  upon  the  propensities  and  tendencies  of  nature,  flies 
off,  at  once,  for  an  illustration,  into  a  state  wholly  artificial, 
and  talks  of  the  multiplication  of  animals  in  tliis  state,  in- 
stead of  animals  in  a  state  of  nature,  where  they  have  to 
provide  for  their  own  wants,  and  to  seek  for  the  means  of 
their  own  defence  and  2oreservation.  What!  nasty,  impu- 
dent, and  stupid  beast,  you  want  to  show  us  how"  fast  ani- 
mals would  increase,  if  left  to  the  ''  unrestrained  instincts 
of  nature,'^  and  as  a  proof  of  it,  you  cite  what  would  be 
the  increase  of  a  flock,  guarded  during  the  day  by  the 
shepherd  and  his  dog,  folded  at  night,  and  pampered  upon 
grass,  clover,  and  turnips,  created  for  them  and  almost  put 
into  their  mouths,  by  the  labour  of  men  and  horses !  You 
are  a  pretty  beast  to  reason  upon  analogy !  you  are  a  pretty 


6  Twoj^PENNY  Trash  ; 

beast  to  show  us  what  would  be  the  effect  of  leaving  ani- 
inals  to  the  ''  unrestrained  instincts  of  nature !" 

To  make  your  argument  of  analogy  worth  a  straw,  you 
ought  to. have  gone  for  an  illustration,  not  to  flocks  and 
heMs,  tended  and  fed  and  nursed  and  physicked  by  the 
hand  of  man,  but  to  those  untamed  animals  which  acknow- 
ledge no  owner,  and  which  provide  for  their  own  wants  and 
their  own  protection.  Of  these  the  sparrow,  the  rook,  the  rab- 
bit, the  hare,  the  pheasant,  the  wood-pigeon,  the  partridge, 
and  some  others,  are,  in  part,  provided  for  b}^  man  ;  yet  it  is 
"not  without  great  difficulty  that  some  of  them  can  be  made 
to  increase.  But  the  foxes,  the  badgers,  the  otters,  the  wea- 
zels,  the  stoats,  the  pole -cats  ;  why  do  they  not  over-run 
the^ country  ?  They  are  killed  by  man  and  other  animals  5 
aye,  now  and  then  one,  but  not  in  so  great  a  proportion  as 
men  are  killed  in  various  strifes,  and  by  accidents  arising 
out  of  their  state  in  civil  society.  And  why  do  not  these 
animals  (all  great  breeders)  cover  the  land,  then  ?  They 
are^leffc  to  the  ''  unrestrained  instincts  of  nature  ;*'  aye,  but 
they  are  also  left  to  get  their  own  living  ;  to  work  for  what 
they  eat.  Mice  and  rats,  indeed,  absolutely  demand  cats 
and  traps  to  "  check  the  population**  of  them  ;  and,  why} 
because  the  food  on  which  they  live  is  provided  for  them 
by  the  hand  of  man.  Take  that  artificial  provision  away, 
andlthere  will  be  no  need  of  cats  and  traps  to  keep  them 
dowm.  And  magpies,  now,  why  do  not  they  fill  the  woods 
and  devour  us  ?  Who  ever  kills  a  magpie  ?  The  most  art- 
ful of  birds,  the  most  vigilant,  so  nearly  a  match  for  the 
hawk,  that  the  latter  never  attacks  him.  Seldom  is  his  nest 
molested ;  and  yet,  this  is  rather  a  rare  bird.  And  why  ? 
Because  he  is  compelled  to  pass  his  time  in  watchings  and 
in  labour.  Feed  the  magpies,  and  take  care  of  them,  and 
they  will  be  as  plentiful  and  as  insolent  as  pensioners,  and 
you  must  soon  begin  to  eat  them  (sweet  morsels  !),  or  to  kill 


t 


1$T  July,  1831.  7 

them  at  least,  or  they  will  fill  tlie  aif  with  their  chs^ttering. 
I  found,  at  £arn*£}iay  a  dove-house  with  d\iO\ii  Jifty'-pair 
of  pigeons.     I  let  them  get  their  own  living  :  in  the  three 
years  they  did  not  give  u^Jifty  young  ones,  and  their  popu- 
lation fell  off,  at  last,  to  d}iO\xt  fifteen  pair,     I  had  a  little 
pigeon-house  at  Kensington,  set  out  with  four  pair,  that 
soon  began  to  take  enough  young  ones  for  a  pigeon-pie  once 
a  week ;  and  yet,  in  about  two  years,  they  increased  to  such 
numbers,  that  I  was  compelled  to  slaughter  th€  whole  by 
shooting,  and  to  begin  again«     But  here  they  were  fed  three 
times  a  day  abundantly,  and   whenever   they   went  from 
home  it  was  for  diversion,  and  not  to  seek  food.     Here  was 
"  surplus  population  ;'*    and  here  was    the  cause.     These 
lazy  devils  at  Kensington  got  all  the  food  and  none  of  the 
work ;  and  therefore  I  was  compelled  to  "  check  their  popu- 
lation," and  finally  to  destroy  them. 

The  blackbirds  and  thrushes  sometimes  rob  a  man  a  little, 
but  the  tom-tits,  goldfinches,  nightingales,  swallows,  mar- 
tens,   hedge-sparrows,    aud  peckers,  and  numerous  other 
birds,  live  wholly  on  worms  and  buds  and  insects  and  seeds 
of  weeds.     There  is  never  any  overstock  of  them,  though 
nobody  kills  them ;  but  there  would  be  an  overstock  of  all 
of  them,  if  man  were  to  feed  them,  and  to  provide  thtm 
with  nests  and  protection,  and  were  never  to  destroy  any  of 
them«      My  little   farm -yard  at  Kensington,  contains,  at 
present,  two  cows,  a  bull-calf,  two  old  sows,  ^vq  male  pigs, 
and  seven  females,  all  these  about  three  months  old,  two 
cocks,  ten  hens,  and  about  seventeen  pigeons.     Here,  if  I 
were  to  let  them  all  remain  in  their  natural  state,  to  pursue 
the  '^  unrestrained  instincts  of  nature,''  and  to  go  on  calv- 
ing, pigging,  and  hatching,  there  w^ould  be  a  goodly  assem- 
blage in  a  short  time:  there  would  be  a  *^  surplus  popula- 
tion'' indeed !     But,  then,  I  must  continue  to  feed  thern  all : 
I  must  continue  to  draw  from  my  garden  subsistence  for 


8  Two-penny  Trash; 

them^  from  the  fruit  of  my  care  and  the  labour  of  my 
me7i  in  the  raising  of  the  cabbages,  turnips,  mangel-wurzel 
and  corn,  on  which  they  all  live.  Upon  this,  and  this 
alone^  I  ground  ray  right  to  "  check  their  population/*  by 
killing  the  calf  as  soon  as  he  is  fit,  by  taking  the  milk  from 
the  cows,  by  altering  (as  the  Yankees  call  it)  and,  after- 
wards, killing  the  pigs,  by  taking  the  eggs  from  the  hens, 
and  by  taking  the  youug  pigeons  from  their  nests  and  put- 
ting them  into  pies.  If  I  were  to  leave  them  to  provide  for 
themselves,  their  population  w^ould  need  no  checking ;  and 
if  they  were  to  be  so  situated  as  to  be  able  to  get  their  own 
living,  they  would  hardly  breed  too  much,  because  their 
numbers  could  increase  only  in  proportion  to  the  subsistence 
that  thay  obtained,  and  that,  too,  without  injury  to  others  ; 
for,  if  they  committed  such  injury,  they  would  be  destroyed 
in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  that  injury ;  and  this  de- 
stroying would  keep  their  numbers  within  due  bounds. 

It  is  exactly  the  same  with  human  beings,  who,  if  they 
labour,  never  CAN  breed  too  fast,  because  they  create  food 
and  clothing  and  other  necessaries  in  proportion  to  their 
numbers,  and  because,  indeed,  the  subsistence  must  precede 
the  population.  But  if  there  be  a  government  to  step  in, 
and  wrest  the  subsistence  from  those  by  whose  labour  it  is 
created,  and  hand  it  over  to  others  who,  like  my  farm-stock, 
create  nothing,  then  the  poor  souls  that  do  the  work  must 
suffer  from  want.  This  is  the  situation  of  England  at  this 
moment ;  and  here  is  the  real  foundation  and  motive  of  all 
that  we  hear  about  "  surplus  population,''  Those  who  la- 
bour, those  w^ho  create  all  the  food  and  all  the  raiment, 
seem,  at  last,  resolved  not  to  live  any  longer  in  a  state  of 
half  starvation ;  and,  therefore,  those  who  live  in  idleness 
on  the  fruit  of  their  labour,  are  using  all  sorts  of  endea- 
vours to  make  us  believe  that  the  working  people  are  too 
numerous,  and  these  devourers  are  worrying  the  Govern- 


1st  July,  1831.  9 

merit  to  death  to  adopt  some  scheme  for  thinning  their 
numbers,  not  caring  a  straw  about  what  the  country  must 
thereby  lose  in  point  of  resources  and  strength.  These 
idlers  are,  in  one  respect,  not  like  my  farm-stock,  for  they 
yield  nothing  in  return  for  what  they  devour.  They  are 
like  the  nags  and  pleasure-fillies,  who,  finding  the  clover 
run  short,  petitioned  the  master  to  sell  off,  or  kill,  some  of 
the  cart-horses,  of  whom  they  alleged  that  the  population 
was  '^  surplus.'*  '*  Oh,  no  T'  said  the  master,  *'  if  there  be 
not  enough  for  all,  I  must  get  rid  of  some  of  you ;  for  you 
create  nothing,  and  without  the  cart-horses,  we  shall  all  be , 
starved  together." 

There  may,  indeed,  be  a  real  "surplus  population'^  of 
idlers  ;  and  this  is  the  case  in  England  now  ;  a  real  sur- 
plus of  nags  and  fillies  ;  these  are  crying  out  for  a  diminu- 
tion of  the  number  of  the  cart-horses,  and,  contrariwise  to 
the  farmer,  our  Government  is  listening  to  the  clamour  of 
these  luxurious  idlers,  and  seems  to  be  as  busy  as  bees  ia 
contriving  schemes  for  checking  the  breeding  and  getting 
rid  of  those  who  do  all  the  work  and  create  all  the  resources 
of  the  country,  while,  at  the  same  time,  that  same  Govern- 
ment does  not  one  single  thing  to  check  the  breeding,  or  to 
get  rid,  of  those  who  live  in  idleness  out  of  the  fruit  of  the 
working  people's  labour,  and  who  are  mere  coiisumers  and 
wasters  of  the  nation's  resources. 

Let  us  try  this  a  little,  as  the  Yankees  say ;  let  us  resort 
to  an  illustration,  and  see  if  we  cannot  find  a  better  one  than 
that  of  this  no-sty  feelosofery  "  Edward  Ludlow,''  who, 
by-the-by,  does  not  tell  us  where  he  is  to  be  seen  or  heard 
of,  '*  If  Edward''  should  happen  to  know  John  Cam 
"  HoBHOUSE,  Esq.,"  who  is  a  member  under  Sir  Glory, 
for  the  city  of  Westminster,  and  who,  along  with  his  mas- 
ter, was  so  pelted  with  cabbages  and  turnips,  at  the  election, 
in  Covent  Garden,   last  summer;  if  *'  Edward"  should 

B  5 


*0  Two-penny  Trash; 

happen  to  know  *'  John  Cam,  Esquire'*  that  will  be  joat 
the  thing ;  for  then  he  will  have  the  illustration  complete. 
John  Cam  married  a  Juliana  Hay,  who  was  a  pensioner 
Irom  her  infancy.  There  were  two  broods  of  these  Hays 
standing  on  the  pension  lisi;  but  one  will  be  enough  for 
our  purpose, 

*  Grant,  dated  1807,  to  James  Earl  of  Lauderdale  and 
*  others,  in  trust  for 

*  Mary  Turner  Hay,  per  year   .  .....  100^. 

*  Dorothy  Frances  Hay 1 00 

'  Hannah  Charlotte  Hay 1 00 

*  Ehzabeth  Hay 100 

*  James  Hay 100 

'  Juliana  Hay 100 

Now  it  is  very  clear  that  *'  Edward  Ludlow's"  doc- 
trine would  apply  here ;  for  here  the  parties  create  nothing. 
I  will  not  compare  such  delicate  ladies  to  "  stock  upon  a 
farm  ;  '^  but"  like  the  lilies  of  the  field,  they  toil  not,  nei- 
ther do  they  spin'*  They  do  no  work,  they  create  nothing 
usefiil,  they  make  come  neither  food  nor  raiment  nor  fuel 
nor  bedding  nor  houses ;  therefore  they  may  easily  be  too 
numerous ;  because  they  do  not,  like  the  working  classes, 
create  [subsistence  in  proportion  to  their  numbers ;  they 
draw  their  subsistence,  or,  rather,  the  exciseman  draws  it 
for  them,\  out  of  the  fruit  of  the  labour  of  others/^wBX 
as  the  farmer  brings  the  food  to  his  pigs  out  of  the  fields 
which  have  been  ploughed  and  sowed  by  him  and  the 
horses.  Such  people,  therefore,  if  left  to  follow  the  *'  unre- 
strained instincts  of  nature,"  and  if  fed  in  proportion  to  their 
numbers,  must  soon  actually  cover  the  face  of  the  earth, 
and  devour  up  every- thing  upon  it. 

But  suppose  that  Lady  Juliana  had  not  had  the  ex- 
ciseman to  draw  subsistence  for  her  from  the  fruit  of  the 
labour  of  the  Scotch  people  (it  is  a  Scotch  aflfair),  how 


1st  July,  1831.  M 

would  the  case  have  stood  then  ]  She  must  have  worked 
for  what  she  ate  and  wore  ;  she  might  at  this  moment  have 
been  weeding  in  the  corn,  and  by-and-by  haymaking,  reap- 
ing, and  then  hop-picking,  and  in  the  winter,  spinning  and 
knitting.  In  that  case,  she  would  have  created  as  much  as 
she  consumed ;  she  would  have  been  no  surplus ;  and  if 
she  had  increased  there  would  have  been  no  harm,  because 
her  increase  would,  in  the  usual  course  of  things,  have 
brought  '^  a  proportionate  increase  of  subsistence^  Let 
*'  Edward  Ludlow''  go  and  ask  John  Cam  (if  he  be 
acquainted  with  him)  whether  this  be  not  sound  doctrine  ; 
and  when  he  is  about  it,  to  make  the  illustration  more 
ample,  he  may  ask  the  Squire  how  the  case  stands  with 
regard  even  to  the  Squire  himself  who  is  one,  they  say, 
of  a  family  of  TEN  CHILDREN,  and  whose  father  has, 
as  '^  Commissioner  of  Nabob  of  Arcot's  Debts,''  (O  Lord  !) 
received  about  fifteen  hundred  pounds  a  year  for  nearly,  or 
quite,  the  last  thirty  years;  and,  of  course,  about  forty -Jive 
thousand  pounds  071  the  whole. 

Here  again  the  doctrine  of  ^*  Ludlow  ''  applies:  here  is 
*'  surplus  population  :"  here,  if  the  parties  were  left  to  the 
^^  unrestrained  instincts  of  nature,'*  they  would  certainly 
devour  up  the  earth  itself  in  time.  But  if  these  ten  persons 
were  not  thus  provided  for  out  of  the  fruit  of  other  people's 
labour,  they  might  now  be  all  engaged  in  occupations  in 
w^hich  they  would,  in  some  way  or  other,  be  producers  of 
food,  clothing,  houses,  ships,  or  some  other  things  neces- 
sary to  man ;  and  then  the  addition  that  they  would  make 
to  the  population  would  be  no  surplus  ;  because  they  would, 
by  their  labour,  cause  a  proportionate  addition  to  the  food 
and  other  things  necessary  to  man,  and  necessary  to  the 
support  of  the  power  of  the  country. 

The  conclusion,  then,  is  this :  that  of  those  who  create 
useful  things  by  their  labour,  either  of  hands  or  head,  there 


12  Two-penny  Trash; 

never  can  be  too  many  in  any  country;,  because  they  will 
create  subsistence  in  proportion  to  their  numbers,  and  there 
will  be  less  population  in  a  given  space  of  unproductive  land 
than  in  the  same  space  of  productive  land,  because  the  sub- 
sistence must  exist  before  the  new  mouths  can  come ;  but 
that,  of  those  who  create  nothing  useful,  there  may  be,  as 
there  is  now  in  this  country,  a  great  surplus  population,,  and 
this  may  be  so  prodigious  as  to  produce  something  very 
nearly  approaching  to  general  famine,  as  is  the  case  at  this 
moment  in  Ireland,  whence  the  idlers  bring  away  so  much 
as  to  leave  not  a  suificiency  even  of  the  accursed  root  to 
keep  the  producing  classes  from  starving. 

To  bar  all  cavil  upon  the  subject,  let  me  add,  that  I  do 
not  include  amongst  the  idlers,  lawyers,  doctors,  or  teachers 
of  any  sort,  as  far  as  they  be  necessary  in  a  country  ;  nor 
the  makers  and  administrators  of  the  laws ;  nor  soldiers, 
nor  sailors,  necessary  for  the  defence  of  the  country.  These 
assist  those  who  create  and  who  convey  from  hand  to  hand 
the  things  created  by  securing  to  them  protection  and  peace, 
and  the  enjoyment  of  the  things  created.  The  owner  of  the 
land  is  no  idler;  for  the  land  is  necessary  to  all;  and  with- 
out an  owner  it  could  not  be  advantageously  used.  But 
those  who  draw  their  subsistence  from  those  who  labour, 
without  adequate  services  in  return ;  these  are  the  idlers ; 
and  they  do  not  deserve  to  be  put  on  a  level  with  stock 
upon  a  farm,  because  these  we,  first  or  last,  turn  into  meat, 
shoes  or  coats ;  whereas  the  idlers,  like  the  vermin  that  suck 
our  blood,  or  those  that  eat  up  our  victuals  in  our  cupboards, 
are,  in  their  lives,  our  torment,  and,  in  their  deaths,  our 
disgust. 

There,  nasty  ^^  Edward  Ludlow;"  now  go  and  put 
forth  your  scheme  for  sending  the  working-people  away,  or  for 
^'  incapacitating  them  from  breeding;"  and  then  go  to  some 
farm-yard,  in  the  north  of  Wiltshire,  and,  as  the  reward  for 


1st  July,  1831.  13 

discovering  your  '^  beautiful  science/'  have  your  brains 
knocked  out  by  the  milk-maids  against  the  posts  of  the 
cow-cribs. 

Wm.  COBBETT. 


NEW  EMIGRATION  SCHEME. 

Notwithstanding  the  article  which  you  have  just 
read;  notwithstanding  the  clear  proof  there  given  that  the 
arguments  were  not  worth  a  straw ;  notwithstanding  this,  the 
schemers  are  proceeding  with  as  much  vigour  as  ever;  and, 
sorry  I  am  to  tell  you,  that  they  now  appear  to  be  acting 
with  the  approbation  of  the  Government  itself,  as  you  wall 
clearly  perceive  by  the  followii^g  publication,  sent  forth  in 
the  Government  Gazette,  of  the  22d  of  June. 

*'  The  King  was  this  day  pleased  to  confer  the  honour  of 
"  Knighthood  upon  the  Right  Honourable  Robert  Wilmot 
"  Horton,  Governor  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Island 
"  of  Ceylon. 

*^  His  Majesty  has  been  pleased  to  establish  a  commissioTiy 
^*  for  the  purpose  of  collecting  and  communicating  to  per- 
*^  sons  desirous  to  emigrate  to  any  of  the  British  posses* 
^'  sio7is  abroad,  inquest  of  employment,  such  information 
*^  as  may  be  useful  to  the  parties  so  circumstanced :  and 
'^  generally  to  render  to  such  persons  such  counsel,  advice, 
*^  and  aid  as  can  be  lawfully  afforded  to  them  in  effecting 
"  sucl|  emigrations.  The  commissioners  will  hold  their 
"  meetings  at  the  Colonial  Office,  in  Downing-street,  and 
"  the  following  are  the  persons  appointed :  His  Grace  the 
^^  Duke  of  Richmond,  Viscount  Howick,  Francis  Thorn^ 
"  hill  Baring,  Esq.,  Henry  Ellis,  Esq.,  and  Robert  Wilson 
"  Hay,  Esq. :  Frederick  T.  Elliot,  Esq.  to  act  as  secre- 
"  to  the  said  commissioners.'* 


14  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

But,  you  will  say,  what  have  we  to  do  with  this  Right 
Honourable  Wilmot  Houton  ?  Why,  you  have  a  greiit 
deal  to  do  with  hiui :  he  is  the  head  emigration  schemer  ; 
and  he  has  just  now  been  made  the  governor  of  an  island, 
a  post  which,  they  say,  is  worth  eight  thousand  pounds  a 
year ;  and  who  it  is  that  pays  it,  I  need  not  tell  you.  How- 
ever, he  has  schemed,  it  seems,  pretty  well  for  himself;  but, 
my  friends,  only  look  at  this  thing  !  a  board  of  commission- 
ers, established  by  the  King,  to  collect  information  for  persons 
who  may  wish  to  get  out  of  the  country!  a  board  of  com- 
missioners, with  a  Duke  at  the  head  of  it,  to  show  people 
how  they  may  carry  away  out  of  England  that  which  con- 
stitutes England's  strength.  A  board  of  royal  commissioners 
to  get  the  King's  subjects  out  of  his  kingdom.  Strange 
state  of  tilings  when  this  can  be ;  this  excites  an  ominous 
foreboding  indeed.  But  let  others  do  what  they  like:  my 
business  is  to  give  you  true  information  upon  the  subject ;  my 
business  is,  to  guard  you  against  listening  to  the  suggestions 
of  any-body,  which  suggestions  might  be  injurious  to  you. 

You  will  observe,  that  these  commissioners  are  to  collect 
information,  and  to  give  it  to  such  persons  only  as  may  wish 
to  go  to  British  possessions  abroad ;  British  possessions y 
mind  you;  and,  indeed,  none  was  necessary  to  be  collected 
for  persons  going  to  the  United  States  of  America,  for  they 
have  all  the  information  already  collected,  in  my  little  book 
called  the  EmigranVs  Guide,  What  sort  of  government 
there  is  in  British  possessions  abroad,  you  may  gather  from 
the  following  account.  One  of  the  British  possessions  is 
-called  Demerara,  and,  in  that  colony,  there  was  a  news- 
paper printed,  called  the  D enter ara  Gazette,  published 
and  owned  by  Mr.  Alexander  Stephenson.  Now  take 
this  proprietor's  own  account  of  the  manner  in  which  his 
publication  was  put  a  stop  to ;  read  it  attentively,  it  is  dated 
George  Town,  Demerara,  17th  March,  1831,  and  it  has 
been  sent  to  me  and  all  the  other  publishers  in  London, 


J 


1st  July,  1831.  15 

that  we  may  let  the  people  know  how  the  press  is  treated 
in  the  colonies. 

*'  Sir, — A  circumstance  having  occurred  yesterday  in  our  office 
which,  in  our  opinion  as  aprecedent,  deeply  interests  every  British 
subject,  and  more  especially  all  those  immediately  connected  with 
the  public  press,  we  take  the  liberty  of  communicating  it  for  your 
information,  requesting  that  you  will  take  such  notice  of  it  as  in 
your  discretion  the  case  may  appear  to  require.  For  the  facts  of 
the  case,  we  beg  to  refer  you  to  the  notice  and  other  documents 
which  we  published  yesterday,  and  to  a  copy  of  our  paper  of  the 
\Ath  mstaat,  for  publishing  which  our  license  to  piint  the  same  has 
been  arbitrariii/  withdrawn  by  the  authorities  named  in  the  interdict^ 
without  subjecting  the  question  of  our  delinquency  to  the  decision 
of  amy  court  of  justice y  or  affording  us  any  notice  or  explanoAi^n 
whatsoever.  This  is  the  third  time  that  our  paper  has  been 
stopped,  in  the  same  abrupt  and  arbitrary  manner,  by  the  same 
individual,  Major-General  Sir  Benjamin  D*Urban,  the  lieutenant- 
governor  of  this  colony.  On  the  I8th  of  November,  1825,  the 
same  thing  took  place,  and  from  an  equally  insignificant  cause,  viz. 
having  published  in  our  paper  a  most  outrageously  gross  expres- 
sion made  use  of  publicly  on  parade  by  a  major  in  the  militia  to  a 
very  respectable  inhabitant,  a  private  in  the  same  corps.  Our  paper 
was  then  stopped  for  a  considerable  time;  and  it  was  only  in  caa- 
sequence  of  making  a  personal  application  to  the  Colonial  Secre- 
tary in  London,  that  we  were  allowed  to  resume  its  publication. 
On  the  second  occasion,  the  grounds  were  so  trifling,  that  the  In- 
terdict was  withdrawn  in  the  course  of  two  days.  The  circulation 
of  our  Paper  is  very  considerable,  not  only  in  this  colony,  but  also 
throughout  all  the  West  Indies,  and  even  in  Great  Britain.  The 
loss,  therefore,  to  us,  occasioned  by  such  suspensions,  must  be 
obvious  to  you,  and  the  inconvenience  and  annoyance  to  the 
public,  occasioned  by  the  suppression  of  the  only  paper  which 
attempts  the  discussion  of  our  local  grievances,  is  very  consider- 
able. As  a  proof  that  our  statement  of  the  public  distress  here, 
and  of  the  existence  of  most  oppressive  and  rapidly  increasing- 
abuses  is  by  no  means  exaggerated,  we  enclose  for  your  inspection ' 
a  memorial,  drawn  up  and  about  to  be  transmitted  by  the  planters 
and  merchants  of  this  colony,  with  an  appendix  containing  the 
details  of  their  difficulties  and  a  statement  of  many  of  the  abuses 
which  now  grievously  oppress  them.  We  were  prepared  to  produce 
a  far  more  detailed  and  well- authenticated  statement  of  all  these 
circumstances,  and  the  means  by  which  the  authorities  have 
thought  proper  to  suppress  its  publication,  have  been  the  sup- 
pression of  our  paper  in  the  arbitrary  manner  above  stated.  The 
effectual  suppression  of  these  repeated  violations  of  the  legitimate 
freedom  of  the  press,  in  many  distant  parts  of  the  empire,  can 
only  be  obtained  by  strong  public  appeals  to  the  justice  and  sym- 
pathy of  our  countrymen  in  the  mother  country.  The  delays  and 
expenses  of  repeated  applications  to  law  for  redress,  would  exhaust 


16  T\ro-PENNY  Trash; 

the  patience  and  resources  of  the  most  fortunate.  To  our  fellow- 
labourers,  therefore,  in  the  same  useful  and  arduous  avocation, 
we  chiefty  look  for  that  support  which  we  feel  confident  they  will 
not  refuse  to  an  unjustly  persecuted  individual,  and  that  they  will 
feel  stimulated  to  afford  this,  not  less  from  a  kindly  sympathy  to 
another's  sufferings  than  from  an  enlightened  view  of  their  own 
deep  interest  in  the  subject." 

It  is  not  likely  that  the  board  of  commissioners,  with  the 
Duke  of  Richmond  at  their  head,  should  communicate  this 
information  to  persons  who  are  disposed  to  emigrate  to  the 
colonies ;  yet  nothing  can  be  more  useful  to  such  persons 
than  information  like  this.  I  question,  too,  whether  the 
Lord  Chancellor,  who  has  a  work  published  which  he  calls 
^  Useful  Knowledge  for  the  People,'*  will  publish  this 
piece  of  information ;  and  so  the  poor  fools  that  sufifer  them- 
fielves  to  be  persuaded  to  go  to  the  colonies,  will,  when  they 
.(^ome  there,  find  themselves  unable  to  have  a  word  to  read, 
except  that  word  be  first  licensed  by  the  governor  !  It  is 
very  well  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  paper  which  caused 
this  taking  away  of  the  license,  contained  an  extract 
from  the  Register,  describing  the  ilUtreatment  of  the 
people  in  Ireland,  and  another  from  my  History  of  Geo. 
J  v.,  describing  the  meanness  2ind  falseness  of  the  Whigs  ! 
^'  Like  master  like  man;''  like  ministry  like  governor.  It 
is  not  likely,  indeed,  that  any  of  you  will  ever  become 
printers  or  editors ;  but,  pray,  ask  yourselves :  if  this  be 
the  law  with  regard  to  the  press,  what  must  be  the  law  with 
regard  to  speech  ?  and,  if  a  man  can  neither  write  nor 
speak  in  safety,  what  becomes  of  the  safety  of  his  person 
and  his  property  ?  Put  these  questions  to  yourselves ;  and 
then,  after  you  have  duly  considered  them,  if  you  still  go  to  an 
English  colony,  be  all  the  consequences  on  your  own  heads. 
Look,  on  the  other  hand,  at  the  United  States  of  America, 
where  there  has  been  no  state  prosecution  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  existence  of  the  republican  government ;  where 


1st  July,  1831.  17 

there  is  not  only  no  license,  but  where  there  are  none  of 
those  laws  that  we  have  here  for  trammelling  the  press ; 
where  there  is  no  stamp  upon  newspapers,  or  upon  any-thing 
else ;  where,  under  that  good  and  cheap  government,  no  man 
in  public  authority  is  afraid  of  the  press. 

I  have  given  you  a  fair  specimen  of  the  sort  of  liberty 
enjoyed  in  the  British  colonies.  I  knew  it  well  before  ;  I 
could  give  you  a  description  of  all  the  wretchedness  of 
living  in  those  colonies ;  but  I  have  chosen  to  content  my- 
self with  this  one  authentic  undeniable  proof;  and,  with 
that  proof,  I  am  sure  that  you  will  be  satisfied.  It  is  not^ 
however,  of  this  species  of  liberty  that  you  would  most  feel 
the  want :  it  is  of  the  real  bodily  sufferings  of  which  I  think 
most,  and  against  encountering  which  I  wish  to  guard  you. 
To  go  to  Botany  Bay,  to  which  they  now  give  the  pretty 
name  of  Swan  River,  Sidney  Settlement,  Van  Diemens 
Land,  and  the  like,  is  to  go  a  nine  months*  voyage,  to  begin 
with;  and  then,  if  you  outlive  that  voyage,  to  encounter 
every  hardship  that  tongue  or  pen  can  describe.  The  British 
American  colonies  are  Prince  Edward's  Island,  New-^ 
foundland^  Nova  Scotia,  New  Brunswick,  and  Canada* 
Six  months  in  the  year,  all  these  countries  are  covered  with 
snow  several  feet  deep.  Prince  Edward's  Island  and 
Newfoundland  are  two  banks  of  sand,  with  fir-trees  growing 
upon  part  of  them.  Nova  Scotia  consists  of  heaps  of  rocks, 
covered  with  fir- trees,  for  the  greater  part,  with  a  few  narrow 
strips  of  clear  land  in  the  bottoms  of  the  valleys.  Nova 
Scotia  is  much  about  the  same  thing;  and,  in  short,  this  is 
the  description  of  the  whole,  except  a  part  of  Upper  Canada, 
which  joins  on  to  the  worst  part  of  the  United  States. 
Every-where  the  snow  covers  the  ground  for  several  feet 
deep  six  months  in  the  year.  So  poor  are  those  countries, 
that  garden-stuif  and  fruit,  even  cabbages,  are  carried  from 
the  United  States  by  sea,  to  be  eaten  by  the  governors, 


18  Two-penny  Trash; 

offioerg  of  the  army,  and  other  gentlefolks^  who  are  paid 
out  of  the  taxes  raised  on   us.     Of  the  poverty  of  those 
countries,  I  need  give  yon  no  proof  hut  this ;  namely,  that 
many  thousands  of  pounds  out  of  our  taxes  are  sent  to  them 
every  year  to  pay  the  church  parsons  in  those  countries ; 
for,  observe^   and  I   beg  you  to  observe  it  well,  that  the 
people  of  those  countries  have  never  submitted  to  the  pay- 
n>ent  of  tithes.     Indeed,  the  countries  are  so  poor,  that  they 
could  not  pay  them  if  they  would ;  but,  poor  as  they  are, 
the  church  parsons  that  are  in  them  contrive  to  be  fat ; 
and  fat  they  will  be  as  long  as  the  means  of  fatness  are 
taken  out  of  taxes  raised  on  us.     I  have  told  you  before, 
and  I  tell  it  you  again,  that  you  are  to  look  upon  North 
America  as  an  ox;  that  our  colonies  are  the  shins,  the 
horns,  the  head,  and  the  hoofs;   and  the   best  part  of 
Canada  may  be  called  the  neck ;  and  that  the  republic  of 
America  consists  of  the  ribs,  the  loins,  the  rump,  the  rounds^ 
the  flanks,  and  the  kidneys ;  which  you  ought  to  choose,  if 
you  have  a  choice,  I  need  not  say,  unless  you  hare  entir^y 
forgotten  what  the  word  beef  means.     In  short,  and  to  give 
you  a  description  more  plain,  if  possible,  do  you  know  of 
any  gravel-pit,  at  the  top  of  which  you  see  the  little  bit  of 
soil,  not  more  than  three  inches  deep,  and  w^ell  mixed  with 
stonee^ — soil  upon  w^hich  nothing  will  grow,  except  the  little 
hardy  weeds,  and  in  which  they  die  in  a  summer  like  this 
before  Old  Midsummer-day;  and  then,  on  the  other  hand, 
do  you  know  any  rich  piece  of  land,  the  soil  deep  as  your 
head,  covered  with  sweet  grass,  and  an  orchard  blooming 
above :  if  you  know  of  these  two  things,  in  the  first  you 
behold  Nova  Scotia  and  the  rest,  and,  in  the  last,  you  be- 
hold the  United  States  of  America ^  the  latter  inhabited, 
too,  by  free  people,  afraid  of  no  governor  nor  any-body  else 
an  hospitable  people;  a  people  like  those  of  their  forefathers 
who   went    from    England;    and    not  a  set  of  crouching 


1st  July,  1831.  19 

creatures,  afraid  to  have  their  licenses  taken  from  them ; 
afraid  to  speak,  except  in  a  whisper,  unless  it  be  to  praise 
those  who  have  the  command  of  them,  and  who  then  may 
roar  out  Hke  thunder. 

But  why  should  you  go  out  of  England  at  all?  What 
should  you  go  away  for?  You  must  stiil  work  for  your 
bread  ;  and  those  of  you  who  may  happen  to  try  it,  will 
remember  what  I  tell  you — that  God  has  made  no  country  so 
pleasant  to  live  and  to  work  in  as  England.  To  be  sure,  to 
avoid  starvation,  to  avoid  seeing  a  wife  and  children  starve, 
a  man  would  go  any-where ;  but  why  should  they  starve 
here?  Here  is  an  abundance  of  foody  and,  as  I  have  over 
and  over  again  proved,  here  is  an  abundance  of  work.  The 
coming  harvest  will  prove,  as,  indeed,  every  harvest  has 
proved,  that  there  are  not  hands  enough,  instead  of  there 
being  too  many.  Why  should  you,  therefore,  quit  your 
country,  encounter  the  hardships  of  a  sea- voyage,  put  your- 
self under  the  command  of  a  captain  of  a  ship,  face  all  the 
dangers  of  the  seas,  and,  after  all,  still  be  compelled  to  work 
for  your  bread,  and  to  endure  heat  and  cold  greater  than 
you  have  ever  known  or  even  dreamed  of.  Any-thing,  I 
allow,  even  death  itself,  is  better  than  to  live  upon  potatoes ; 
but  w^hy  need  you  live  upon  potatoes,  if  you  be  willing  to 
work,  while  the  land  is  loaded  with  corn  and  meat  and 
butter  and  cheese  ?  Your  lot  has  been  unbearable,  to  be 
sure  ;  and  it  is  far  from  being  what  it  ought  to  be  yet ;  but 
is  this  reform  of  Parliament  to  make  no  change  in  that  lot  ? 
If  it  be  not,  to  contempt  and  scorn  I  cast  the  parliamentary 
reform.  It  is  to  better  your  lot  that  I  want  the  reform,  and 
if  it  effect  not  that  purpose,  foolish  or  rogueish  will  be  the 
man  that  praises  it.  But  it  will  effect  that  purpose ;  it  will 
make  your  lot  better  :  have  only  a  little  patience :  see  what 
a  reformed  Parliament  will  do :  you  have  borne  long ;  bear 
a  little  longer :  try  a  reformed  Parliament,  and  do  not 


20  Two-penny  Trash; 

suffer  yourselves  to  be  inveigled  away  by  any  of  the  land- 
Jobbing  crew  of  America,  to  pine  out  your  lives  on  their 
sands  and  rocks  and  swamps ;  do  not  expose  yourselves  to 
perish  amidst  their  snows,  or  to  be  smitten  to  the  earth  by 
the  burnings  of  their  sun. 

With  men  who  have  money,  especially  money  enough  to 
live  upon,  or  to  purchase  land  or  houses,  or  carry  on  busi- 
ness of  any  sort,  and  who  have  families  coming  up,  and  who 
do  not  wish  to  lose  what  they  have,  who  do  not  wish  to  have 
it  all  taken  away  in  tithes  and  taxes,  the  United  States  is 
the  country,  if  their  circumstances  be  such  that  they  cannot 
w^ait  for  the  effects  of  reform.     I  am  myself  a  sort  oi  emi^ 
gration  board  for  persons  of  this  description  ;  one  of  whom 
(whose  letter  I  have  not  had  time  to*  answer)  has  six  thou- 
sand pounds  and  a  rising  family,  which  six  thousand  pounds 
he  wishes  to  keep  for  the  use  of  that  family.     Let  him  go  to 
New  York,  put  out  his  money  on  mortgage  on  land,  with 
judgment  confessed  (as  is  the  custom  of  the  country).     His 
interest  will  give  him  three  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a  year, 
or  one  thousand  nine  hundred  dollars  :  he  may  live  at  ten 
or  fifteen  miles  from  New  York,  amidst  peach  and  cherry 
and  apple  orchards ;  may  keep  a  carriage  and  suitable  ser- 
vants, and  lay  by  a  third  of  his  interest  to  increase  for  his 
children.     If  he  have  a  mind  to  be  saving  and  live  without 
show,  his  living  will  cost  him  less  by  one  half  than  what  he 
is  compelled  to  pay  in  taxes  in  England.     Within  these 
three  weeks,  a  gentleman  came  to  me  who  has  a  wife  and 
three  small  children,  and  could  muster  up  eight  hundred 
pounds  to  have  in  his  pocket  upon  landing,  and  who,  from 
the  total  decline  of  business  here,  saw  ruin  staring  him  in 
the  face.     He  is  now  on  his  way  to  New  York.     He  had 
not  positively  made  up  his  mind  as  to  whither  he  should  go. 
I  showed  him  the  above  document  from  Demerara.     He 
started  at  the  sounds  of  the  words  license  and  interdict, 


1st  July,  1831.  21 

and  of  punishment  without  trial  and  without  being  told  for 
what;  that  decided  him  at  once.  Lord  Brougham,  who 
is  so  anxious  to  instruct  the  people  of  England,  as,  indeed, 
Scotchmen  generally  are;  he  is  so  very  anxious  on  this 
subject,  that  I  am  sure  he  will  thank  me  for  furnishing  him 
with  this  piece  of  useful  information,  to  be  given  to  those 
whom  he  has  taken  under  his  care. 

To  conclude,  my  friends,  my  advice  to  you  is,  not  to 
budge  an  inch  from  your  houses :  this  is  your  country  ;  you 
have  a  right  to  be  in  it,  and  to  have  a  good  living  in  it ; 
but,  if  your  fancy  leads  you  to  roam  abroad,  go  to  no  country 
but  the  United  States  of  America ;  and  go  not  to  that  in 
any  but  an  American  ship,  commanded  by  an  American 
captain.  The  poor  emigrants  from  Sussex,  when  writing 
home  to  their  friends,  make  this  a  particular  point.  They 
guard  them  against  many  inconveniences  and  evils;  but 
they  say  over  and  over  again,  "  If  you  do  come,  be  sure  not 
'*  to  come  in  any  but  an  American  ship  and  with  an  Ame- 
"  rican  captain."  However,  I,  who  have  been  in  all  these 
countries,  advise  you  to  stay  where  you  are,  and  to  see  what 
the  reform  of  Parliament  will  do. 

I  am,  my  friends, 

Your  faithful  friend, 

Wm.  COBBETT. 


STARVING    IRELAND. 

My  Friends, 

I  HAVE  not  room  to  say  much  to  you  on  this  subject, 
so  disgraceful  to  our  Government  and  country;  but  it  is 
necessary  to  tell  you  w^hat  are  the  consequences  which  come 
from  a  working  people  living  upon  potatoes.  To  live  upon 
this  accursed  root,  this  lowest  of  hog-meat,  this  food  of  a 
poor  hog,  reduces  man  to  the  state  of  beast ;  but  this  is  not 
all ;  for  when  once  he  suffers  himself  to  sink  into  that  state. 


22  Two-PE^'NY  Trash  ; 

to  depend  upon  that  uncertain  crop;  when  once  he  is  thus 
far  degraded,  the  next  step  is  a  ^-ant  of  a  sufl&ciency  of  that, 
and  then  comes  starvation  itself.  Of  these  truths  that 
wretched  country,  Ireland,  now  offers  us  the  dismal  proofs. 
I  have  explained  to  you,  that,  by  the  laws  of  God,  the  laws 
of  the  ancient  church  of  our  country,  by  the  common  law  of 
our  land,  by  the  statute  law  of  our  land,  every  man,  unable 
to  provide  himself  with  a  sufficiency  of  food  and  raiment  for 
himself  and  his  family,  is  entitled  to  receive  that  sufficiency 
out  of  the  produce  of  the  land  of  his  own  country.  But 
how  fares  it  with  the  unhappy  Irish,  who  are  starving  by 
hundreds  and  by  thousands,  while  ship-loads  of  beef,  bacon, 
pork,  butter,  and  corn,  are  continually  sent  from  that  country 
to  this  country  and  others  ?  I  will  make  to  you  no  statement 
upon  my  own  authority ;  I  will  state  to  you  facts  that  will 
first  make  your  blood  run  cold,  and  then  make  it  boil  with  in- 
dignation; but  I  wall  take  all  these  facts  from  under  the 
pens  of  the  lords,  the  parsons,  and  those  who  are  called  the 
gentlemen  of  Ireland.  In  one  report,  published  by  authority, 
and  signed  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Committee  in  Dublin, 
whose  name  is  Francis  Lynch  Blosse,  and  who  is,  I 
believe,  a  baronet,  is  the  folio tving  passage;  and  I  am  sure 
that  you  will  want  nothing  more : — 

"  The  greatest  distress  prevails  in  forty-two  parishes,  or  districts, 
and  that  in  these  are  148,041  persons  now  suffering  under  the  ago- 
nies of  hunger.  The  members  of  the  deputation  further  offer  them- 
selves for  examination  on  oath  before  the  Privy  Council — for  from 
their  knowledge  of  the  country,  and  intercourse  with  the  poor,  they 
are  able  to  bear  out  the  statements  made  in  the  parochial  returns. 
J  assure  you  I  would  not  by  any  language  exaggerate  the  state  of 
distress  to  which  we  are  now  reduced.  Those  on  the  sea-coast  are 
endeavouring  to  preserve  existence  on  sea-weed  and  shell-fish  found 
along  the  shores.  A  clergyman,  on  whose  authority  I  state  the 
fact,  told  me  that,  doubting  the  accuracy  of  the  reports  which  were 
brought  to  him,  he  visited  families  at  unexpected  times,  and  thus  be- 
came a  witness  of  the  melancholy  meal  where  a  mother,  surrounded 
by  her  children,  picked  out  the  fish  from  the  shells  with  a  pin,  ap- 
portioning the  scanty  morsels  to  each  in  its  turn,  but  too  slowly  to 
satisfy  the  cravings  of  their  hunger.  In  other  parts  of  the  country 
the  poor  are  living  on  nettles  and  weeds,  from  which  experience  has 
taught  tbera  to  extract  some  nourishment ;  and  they  pray  for  a  few 


1st  July,  1831.  23 

handsfuil  of  oatmeal  to  boil  up  with  those  plants,  to  furnish  a  meal 
more  substantial  and  nutritious.  I  can  state  that  a  miserable  mo- 
ther, with  an  infant  in  her  arms,  was  found  attempting  to  prolong 
the  existence  of  her  family  by  sharing  with  each  child  the  nourish- 
ment which  her  breasts  afforded.  These  facts  shall  be  proved  on 
oath  before  the  Privy  Council.  And  shall  we,  then,  appeal  in  vain 
to  the  humanity  of  the  wealthy  to  redeem  these  miserable  victims 
of  the  grave  from  a  painful  and  untimely  death  ?  " 

Read  every  word  of  that  with  attention  ;  read  every  word 
of  it ;  and  then  say  to  yourselves,  Such  will  be  OUR  fate  : 
this  is  the  way  in  which  we  shall  end  our  days,  if  we  once 
suffer  ourselves  to  be  brought  down  to  live  upon  potatoes ; 
and,  in  saying  that  to  yourselves,  you  will  reason  like  sen- 
sible men.  Now,  you  should  be  informed  that,  in  the  month 
of  February  last,  some  of  the  poor  creatures  in  this  country 
sent  a  petition  to  the  Parliament,  praying  for  something  to 
be  done  to  save  them  from  starvation.  The  poor  creatures 
were  very  humble  in  their  petition  :  they  seemed  to  be  al- 
most crawling  upon  their  bellies  while  they  were  praying ; 
and  their  petition  was  presented  by  Mr.  Stanley,  the  son 
of  a  lord;  and  he  is  what  they  call  Secretary  of  State  for 
Ireland.  The  poor  creatures  said,  that  if  they  had  but  food 
for  their  wives  and  families,  they  would  be  thankful,  they 
would  be  industrious,  they  would  be  happy ;  and  this  Se- 
cretary said,  when  he  presented  the  petition,  that  they  did 
not  utter  a  syllable  of  insubordination,  or  even  of  discontent. 
Now  mark,  and  mark  it  well :  he  said,  that,  on  this  account; 
that  is,  because  they  did  not  express  discontent,  their  peti- 
tion was  doubly  deserving  the  attention  of  Parliament.  Now 
mind  this :  the  Parliament  has  done  no  one  thing  to  relieve 
them,  from  that  day  to  this;  while  it  has  been  voting  sums 
upon  sums  for  placemen,  pensioners,  sinecure  people  ;  and, 
amongst  those  pensioners,  pensioners  in  foreign  countries,  or 
rather,  fellows  receiving  what  they  call  half-pay  for  mili- 
tary services.  I  will  say  not  another  word  on  the  subject,  ex- 
cept this,  that  I  recommend  to  you,  the  labourers  of  Eng- 
land, to  ^ve  i^hiag  undoney  which  you  can  legally  do, 


tri.V-ȣ.i>fc;  r.  . 


24  Two-penny  Trash  ;  1st  July,  1831. 

to  prevent  you  from  falling  into  a  state  like  that  in  which 
the  wretched  people  of  Ireland  are  ;  and  that,  if  you  deem 
it  proper  to  petition  the  Parliament  for  relief,  to  express  your 
discontent,  if  you  have  any-thing  to  complain  of. 

COBBETT^S  CORN. 

It  gives  me  great  delight  to  hear  that  this  corn  is  flourish- 
ing with  you  in   Lincolnshire  and  Sussex,  I  not  having 
heard  about  it  from  any  other  of  the  counties  as  yet.     Dig 
between  the  rows,  and  earth  the  plants  up  a  little,  which 
will  make  them  send  out  shoots  from  the  stems ;  keep  the 
ground  quite  clean  from  weeds;  you  will  have  fine  crops, 
plenty  of  seed  for  another  year,  and  you  will  find  it  a  great 
blessing  to  you,  particularly  as  it  will  banish  from  your 
gardens  the  cursed  root  of  slaves,  called  the  potatoe.     1  in- 
troduced this  corn  into  England,  or,  rather,  I  took  it  from 
my  son,  who  introduced  it,  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  its  being 
beneficial  to  you.     By   prevailing  upon  the  nobility,  the 
gentry,  the  parsons,  the  farmers,  to  pay  attention  to  it,  I 
naturally  thought  that  they  would  distribute  it  amongst  you. 
Alas !  I  began  at  the  wrong  end ;  I  should  have  begun  with 
you,  and  not  with  them.     I  hav-e  now  begun  at  the  right 
end,   and  it  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  hear  that  my  en- 
deavour has  been  attended  with  success.     I  know  that  you 
will  act  like  men  of  sense ;  and  the  first  act  of  a  man  of 
sense  is,  to  provide  the  means  of  good  living  for  himself  and 
his  family.     I   am  extremely  happy  to  hear,  particularly 
from  the  county  of  Sussex,  that  you  are  resolved  not  to  be 
inveigled  out  of  England  by  any  of  the  emigration  mongers. 
A  pretty  thing,  indeed,  for  you  to  suffer  yourselves  to  be 
coaxed  away  out  of  your  country  when  the  good  times  are 
coming.      The  reform  of  the  Parliament  will  take   away 
the  hired  overseers,  to  be  replaced  by  the  native  overseers  of 
the  parish,  cause  the  transportation  for  poaching  to  be  abo- 
ilished,  cause  the  malt-tax  and  hop-tax  to  be  taken  off,  and 
the  other  taxes  which  oppress  the  farmer  as  well  as  your- 
selves.    These  are  my  opinions,  and  these  are  my  hopes ; 
therefore,  my  advice  to  you  is,  let  nobody  wheedle  you  to 
quit  England,  and  I  remain  your  faithful  friend, 

Wm.  cobbett. 

[Printed  by  Wm.  Cobbett,  Johnson's-court,  Fleet-8treet,l 


."o.  2.    Vol.  II. 


COBBETT'S 

TWO-PENNY    TRAS 

For  the  Month  of  August,  1831. 


Published  monthlify  sold  at  12s.  Od.  a  hundred,  and  for  300,    taheji 

at  once,  lis. 


TO  THE  PEOPLE  OF  HAxMPSHIRE. 

Kensington,  \st  August,  1831. 
My  Friends, 

Never  were  there  njore  important  matters  than  those 

on  which  I  have  now  'to  address  you.     The  subjects  are  as 

follow : — 

1 .  The  Trial  which  has  lately  taken  place,  on  the  Whig- 
prosecution  against  me. 

2.  The  Barings  and  Mr.  and  Mrs,  Deacle, 

3.  Farmer  Botes,  and  the  libel  published  under  the 
name  of  Wilde. 

4.  Tithes  and  Parsons. 

5.  Emigration  Projects. 

I.  The  Whig-prosecution  Trial. — It  will  not  be 
necessary  to  say  much  to  you  upon  this  subject,  of  which 
you  have  heard  a  great  deal  through  the  newspapers  and 
other  channels.  But  I  must  just  put  it  on  record  in  this 
little  work,  which  I  cannot  do  better  than  in  the  following 
words,  which  are  written  in  my  o^vn  hand- writing,  at  the 

London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-streev> 
aud  sold  by  ail  Booksellers. 


26  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

bottom  of  a  portrait  which  is  just  published,  the  plate  of 
which  is  eighteen  inches  long,  thirteen  inches  wide,  and 
which  is  sold  for  ten  shillings.     The  words  are  these:  — 

This  Portrait  represents  me  in  the  dress  that  1  wore  at  the  trial, 
before  the  Lord  Chief  Justice,  Lord  Tenterden,  and  a  Special  Jury, 
in  the  Guildhall  of  the  City  of  London,  on  the  7th  July,  1831,  in 
the  second  year  of  the  reie;n  of  Kirig  William  the  Fourth  ;  which 
trial  was  on  the  prosecution  of  an  indictment  for  a  pretended  libel, 
published  in  my  Register  of  11th  December,  1830,  but  which  pre- 
tended libel  was  an  earnest  pleading  for  the  lives  of  the  poor 
labourers,  then  about  to  be  tried  by  special  commissions,  in  the 
counties  of  Hants,  Wilts,  Dorset,  Berks,  and  Bucks  ;  which  prose- 
cution was  ordered  by  the  Whig  Ministry,  consisting  of  Lords 
Grey,  Brous^ham,  Lansdown,  Durham,  Melbourne,  Goderich,  Pal- 
merston,  Holland,  Asackiand,  and  Althorp,  Sir  James  Graham,  and 
Mr.  Charles  Grant;  the  Attorney-General  being  Sir  Thomas  Den- 
inan,  and  the  Solicitor-General  Sir  William  Home  ;  and  the  trial, 
■which  lasted  from  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  till  seven  at  night, 
being,  for  the  malignant  Whigs,  conducted  by  the  Attorney- 
General,  Mr.  Gurney,  and  Mr.  VVhiteman,  and  the  Whigs*  Attor- 
ney, Mr.  Maule,  and,  on  my  part,  by  myself,  accompanied  by 
my  Attorney,  Mr.  Edward  C.  Faithful! ;  the  result  being  that,  the 
next  morning  at  nine  o'clock,  the  Jury  (John  Evans  and  William 
Starey,  Esqs. ;  Joseph  Bishop,  James  Wilkinson,  Joseph  Leggins, 
John  VV^ood,  Thomas  Jenkins,  Thomas  Malthy,  Richard  Beeston, 
and  Jam.es  Frisby,  merchants  ;  William  J.  Lavvson,  banker;  and 
John  Seeley,  bookseller)  sent  a  letter  to  the  Judge,  saying  that 
they  were  six  of  one  opinion  and  six  of  another,  that  they  saw  no 
prospect  of  coming  to  a  unanimous  decision,  and  that  they  there- 
fore begged  to  be  discharged;  and  that,  thereupon  the  Judge  dis- 
charged them,  and,  by  that  act,  an  acquittal  was  pronounced,  to 
the  great  joy  of  the  audience  (some  of  whom  had  remained  in  the 
court  the  whole  night  to  hear  the  verdict),  to  the  joy  of  the  friends 
of  freedom  in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom,  and,  I  trust,  to  the  lasting 
benefit  of  the  industrious,  virtuous,  and  hardly-used  labourers  of 
England,  amongst  whom  I  was  born  and  bred,  and  to  prevent 
"whom  from  being  reduced  to  live  upon  potatoes — the  soul-degrad- 
ing potatoe — and  on  water,  instead  of  the  bacon,  bread,  and  beer, 
of  which  our  fathers  had  plenty,  1  have  constantly  and  most  ear- 
nestly laboured,  during  thirty  out  of  the  sixty-five  years  of  my  life, 
always  having  regarded  it  as  my  bounden  duty  to  use  all  the  law- 
ful means  in  my  power  to  better  their  lot,  be  the  consequences 
to  myself  what  they  might.  Wm.  COBBEIT. 

Kensington y  20^/i  July,  1831. 

I  must  just  add  that  the  paper  for  which  I  was  prosecuted 
was,  in  fact,  a  defence,  a  remonstrance,  and  a  prayer,  in 
behalf  of  the  farmers  and  the  labourers  of  England,  and 


1st  August,  1831.  27 

particularly  of  those  of  Wiltshire  and  Hampshire,  to  whom 
the   paper   was   addressed.      This  paper   stated   that   the 
labouring  people  had  been  hardly  treated;  that  the  violences 
which  they  had  comnjitted  had  arisen  out  of  their  dire  and 
cruel  necessities;  that  the  farmers  were  wholly  unable  to 
give  them   sufficient  wages   without  a   great  reduction   of 
taxes,  and  an  abolition  of  tithes ;  that,  seeing  these  circum- 
stances, I  trusted  that  the  Ministers  would  not  shed  the 
blood  of,  or  transport,  any  of  those  labourers  or  farmers ; 
that  I  implored  the  Ministers  to  think  of  the  sufferings  and 
of  the  burdens  borne  by  the  farmers  and  labourers,  and  to 
treat  them  mercifully,  and  rely  upon  their  justice  and  good- 
ness, and  not  upon  severe  punishment.     In  the  sarne  paper, 
I  published  articles  condemning  acts  of  setting  fire.   In  short, 
the  publication  was  one  which  would  have  been  applauded 
by  any  persons  in  the  world,  with  tlie  exception  of  those  who 
belong  to  the  faction  called  the  Whigs.     This  prosecution 
was  prepared  before- hand  by  reports  of  speeches  in  Parlia- 
ment, said  to  have  been  made  by  one  Trevor,  and  by  Lord 
Althorp,  who  is  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.     At 
the  same  time,  one  Rush^,  a  parson  in  Sussex,  and  three 
Sussex  magistrates,  named  Walter  Burrell,  Scawex 
Blunt,  and  something  Tredcroit,  suffered  their  names 
to  be  published   in  The  Times  newspaper,  certifying  con- 
fessions of  one  Thomas  Goodman,  vvho  was  condemned 
to  death  for  setting  fire,  but  who  had  his  life  spared,  after 
he  confessed,  as  is  pretended,  that  he  was  instigated  by  me  ! 
All  this  I  -amply  exposed  at  the  trial,   where  I  had  Lord 
Melbourne,  and  the  other  Cabinet  Ministers,  to  ask  them 
upon  what  grounds  they  spared  the  life  of  Thomas  Good- 
man; but  the  Judge  would  not  let  them  answer  that  question. 
This  is  all  I  shall  say  about  this  trial  here.     The  Trial,  at 
full  lengthy  with  all  the  documents  which  I  produced,  is 
published  at  the  price. of  a  shilling,  by  Strange,  bookseller, 

c  2 


28  Two-penny  Trash; 

No.  21,  Paternoster-row,  London,  and  may  be  sent  for  by 
any  bookseller  in  the  country,  or  any  body  else.  If  this 
Trial  get  into  your  hands,  read  it  yourselves,  and  lend  it 
about  the  country,,  from  one  to  another,  especially  all  round 
about  Winchester,  and  round  about  the  town  of  Battle,  in 
Sussex. 

2.  The  Barings  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle. — 
You  have  heard  already  a  great  deal  of  this  matter  :  it  is  a 
matter  not  so  much  as  it  relates  to  the  immediate  parties, 
but  as  it  aflfects  the  administration  of  justice  generally  ;  and 
that  is  a  thing  in  which  we  are  every  soul  of  us  deeply  con- 
cerned. 1  shall  iirst  insert  the  report  of  the  Trial  (which  re- 
port has  been  published  in  all  the  newspapers),  which  took 
place  at  Winchester,  at  the  Assizes  which  are  just  now  over ; 
and  which  report,  as  published  all  over  the  country,  I  take 
from  the  Morning  Herald  newspaper. 

Deacle  v.  Baring  and  others. — This  was  an  action  of  trespass 
brought  by  the  plaintiff  the  son  of  a  respectable  clerg-yman  in  this 
county,  to  recover  compensation  in  damages  from  the  defendants, 
Mr.  Francis  Baring,  a  magistrate  and  member  of  Parhameut ;  Mr. 
Bingham  Baring, *son  of  Mr.  Alexander  Baring;  Captain  IS) evil], 
the  Rev.  Robert  Wright,  jun.,  and  Mr.  Seagrim,  an  attorney,  for 
a  false  arrest  and  false  imprisonment.  It  arose  out  of  the  unfortu- 
nate tumults  and  riotous  assemblies  that  some  time  ago  disturbed 
.the  country. 

Mr.  Williams  (with  whom  was  Mr.  Earle)  stated  the  plaintiit*s 
case.  The  investigation,  was  one  of  very  great  importance,  not 
only  to  the  plaintiff  himself,  but  also  to  every  member  of  the  com- 
munity, and  the  jury  were  impanelled  to  determine  whether  these 
gentlemen,  bearing  the  rank  and  station  of  magistrates,  should  be 
allowed,  with  impunity,  to  demean  themselves  in  a  manner,  with- 
out any  excuse,  not  befitting  their  occupation,  and  such  as  gentle- 
men and  men  of  honour  would  be  asharaed  to  act,  towards  the 
plaintiff,  the  son  of  a  most  respectable  clergyman,  wha  was  him- 
self to  have  been  brought  up  to  that  profession,  and  who  had  gra- 
duated with  honours  at  the  University,  but  who,  preferring  agri- 
cultural pursuits,  had  abandoned  the  church,  and  now  occupied  a 
large  farm  in  this  county.  The  learned  counsel  then  stated  the 
facts  of  the  case  as  they  afterwards  appeared  in  evidence.  He  was 
fully  sensible  of  the  protection  the  law  threw  around  magistrates 
while  ia  the  execution  of  their  duty  ;  nor  would  his  respectable 
client,  if  the  gross  injury  he  had  received  had  arisen  from  inad- 


1st  August,  1831.  29 

vertence,  have  brought  this  actioii ;   but  such  was  not  the  case. 
These  genllemen  had  acted  without  the  slijj^htest  excuse  in  common 
sense  and  humanity,  and  in  total  violation  of  the  laws  of  the  land. 
The  plaintiff  had  been  put  upon  his  trial  for  the  charge  on  whick 
he  was  taken  and  acquitted.     His  attorney  afterwards  wrote  to  Mr. 
Baring,   and  he   received  in    answer   such    a  letter  as    he   (Mr. 
Williams)  would  rather  have  cut  his  finger  off  than  have  signed  his 
name  to,  written,  a-  it  was,  to  a  man  whose  heart  was  bleeding, 
and  whose  reputation  was  hurt.  The  learned  Gentleman  concluded 
a  very  emphatic  address  by  saying  he  should  have  been  ashamed, 
on  after-reflection,  not  to  have  expressed  sorrow  for  condjict  so 
contrary  to  the  feelings  of  gentlemen,  of  magistrates,  and  of  men. 
William  Lewiagton,  the  first  witness  examined,  deposed;    I  am 
a  harness-maker,  living  at  Winchester.     In  November  last  I  acted 
as  a  police-constable;  I  remember  being  sent  for  on  the  24th  of 
November  to  the  jail  ;  I  tb.ere  saw  I\Ir.  Seagrim  ;  he  asked  me  if 
I  knew  Mr.  Deacle,  of  Marvveli  Farm  ?     On  my  replying  yes,  he 
told  me  to  go  into  the  magistrates*  room  ;   Mr.  Francis  Baring, 
Mr.  Bingham  Baring,  and  Mr.  Wright  were  there;   Mr.  Seagrim 
asked  me  what  sorl:  of  a  man  Mr.  Deacle  was,  and  if  1  coultl 
apprehend   him  }     I  replied  I  could,  and  that  he  was  a  gentle- 
man ;  IMr.  Seagrim  gave  me  a  warrant  to  take  him  ;  I  then  got  a 
light  cart  and  two  men   to  help  me  ;    when   we  got  to  Morstead 
we  proceeded  to  Mr.  Deacle's  House  ;  Mr.  F.  Baring  came  up  be- 
fore we  got  there;  when  I  got  to  the  house  the  door  was  opened, 
and  I  went  in;  1  found    Mr.  Deacle  just  returned  from  rabbit- 
shooting;   upon  ray  showing  the  warrant,  he  said,  *'The  magis- 
trates must  be  mistaken,  for  1  have  done  every  thing  contrary  to 
what  is  there.'*     When  I  told  him   Mrs.  Deacle  must  go  too,  he 
said  that  was  *' impossible  ;  she  is  very  poorly,  and  cannot :  *'  Mr. 
Bingham   Baring,  Mr.  Francis  Baring,  and  Mr.  Wright,  rode  up, 
and  came  into  the  house;  Mr.  Bingham  Baring  said,  *'  Constable, 
do  your  duty;  handbolt  them."     1  hesitated,  but  finally  handcuffed 
them  one  to  the  other.     Mrs.  Deacle  wished  to  put  her  bonnet  and 
shawl  on,  but  Mr.  Bingham   Baring  said  he  **  could  not  wait,'* 
and  again  said,  *'  Constable,  do  your  duty."     Mr.  F.  Baring  then, 
said  he  did  not  see  any  necessity  for  having  the  lady  handcuffed. 
Not  having  my  key  with  me,  Mr.  Baring  slipped  her  hand  out  of 
the  bolts.     She  is  a  small,  delicate  v>'oman,  and  did  not  appear  ia 
good  health  at  the  time.     Whilst  we  were  in  the  house,  Mr.  B. 
Baring  produced  a  pistol,  and  put  it  to  the  head  of  a  man  who  had 
hold  of  Mr.  Deacle's  gun,  and  desired  him  to  give  it  up,  which  ha 
immediately  did,  and  Mr.  Baring  poured  some  water  into  it.     Mr. 
l^eacle  said,  *'  Dou't  spoil  my  gun  ;  there  is  no  necessity  forthat; 
I  am  quite  ignorant  of  this  business."  I  then  took  Mr.  Deacle  into 
the  yard;   he  there  saw  Mr.  Seagrim,  and  said,*']  know  you; 
for  God's  sake,  what  is  all    this  about?    1   am  innocent."     Mr. 
Seagrim  replied,  *'  1  dare  say  you  are."    We  then  went  to  the  cart, 
and  Mr.  Baring,  with  one  of  the  constables,  brought  out   Mrs. 
Deacle.     She  said,  *'  I  cannot  ride  iu  such  a  conveyance  as  that,** 
and  begged  to  be  allowed  to  ride.     The  cart   was  a  commoa  coal- 


30  Two-PENNv  Trash; 

cart,  and  had  no  springs.  The  road  was  very  rough.  Mr.  B. 
Barinji  ordered  me  to  trot,  which  made  the  cart  shake  very  much. 
Mrs.  Deacie  frequently  said,  **  It  hurts  me  sol  really  cannot  ride.** 
When  we  ffot  opposite  Mr.  Lowndes'  house,  she  said  she  could  go 
no  further,  and  endeavoured  to  jump  out.  Mr.  Deacie  put  his  hand 
out,  and  said,  *'  My  dear,  be  quiet,  it  will  be  better."  Mr.  B.  Bar- 
in«c  then  rode  up,  nnd  struck  Mr.  Deacie  a  back-handed  blow  with 
his  stick,  and  said,  *'  Sit  still.'*  The  stick  was  knotted,  and  about 
the  thickness  of  a  man's  thumb  1  here  was  no  necessity  whatever 
for  striking  him.  When  we  had  proceeded  four  miles  in  the  cart, 
a  post-chaise  met  us,  which  Mr.  Deane,  one  of  the  gentlemen  who 
accompanied  us,  had  sent  from  Winche-ter.  They  were  then  put 
into  tiie  chaise  with  Mr.  ^Beckett,  the  jail-keeper,  and  conveyed  to 
the  jail. 

Cross-examined  by  Mr.  Erskine:  I  did  not  request  the  gentle- 
men to  help  me  ;  there  were  some  men  in  the  barn,  but  1  had  not 
the  least  apprehension  that  they  vvould  assist  Mr.  Deacie.  Neither 
IMr.  nor  ]Mrs.  Deacie  said  or  did  any  thing  uncivil,  but  were  per- 
fectly quiet. 

John  Switzer,  another  police  con«;table,  heard  Mrs.  Deacie  ask 
for  lier  horse,  and  upon  Mr.  B.  Baring  refusing,  he  fwitness)  said, 
'*  Good  God!  let  the  lady  have  her  horse;  I  will  lead  it,  and 
take  care  that  she  does  not  escape."  He  ordered  me  to  go  and  do 
nny  duty,  and  put  her  into  the  cart. 

A  female  servant  who  lived  in  the  family  of  Mr.  Deacie  stated, 
that  Mr.  B.  Baring  took  Mrs.  Deacie  into  his  arms,  put  his  arm 
round  her  waist,  and  carried  her  into  the  cart,  letting  her  legs  dangle 
one  way  and  her  head  another. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Rogers  examined :  Had  known  the  plaintiff 
several  years,  and  had  seen  the  testimonials  he  had  received  at  Col- 
lege;  his  father  was  a  most  respectable  man. 

Mr.  Ef'.sii.'NE,  on  the  part  of  the  defendants,  ree;-retted  that  Mr. 
Deacie  should  have  considered  it  necessary,  after  the  acquittal  he 
received,  in  order  to  clear  his  character,  to  bring  the  question 
again  before  a  j'u-y.  ]t  needed  no  evidence  to  picture  to  the  mind 
of  the  jury  the  state  of  the  country  at  the  time.  The  arrest  took 
place  when  it  required  magistrates  to  be  active  in  doing  their  duty. 
The  riots  were  made  principally  by  the  poor;  and  when  the  defen- 
dants were  given  to  understand  that  not  only  Mr.  Deacie,  but  Mrs. 
Deacie  also,  were  urging  the  rioters  on,  they  wislied  to  show  the 
poor  man,  that  if  the  rich,  and  men  of  consequence,  were  guilty 
of  conduct  like  themselves,  they  also  would,  like  them,  be  punished. 
The  learned  Counsel,  in  a  long  speech,  endeavoured  to  show  that 
the  defendants  had  not  exceeded  the  powers  given  them  by  their 
warrant. 

The  learned  Judge,  in  summing  up,  told  the  jury  that  there 
-were  several  points  on  which  they  were  to  form  their  judgment. 
If  they  thought  the  defendants  had  been  guilty  of  excess,  they 
•would  then  find  their  verdict  for  thfi  plaintiff;  also,  if  they  found 
that  they  were  not  justified  in  carrying  the  warrant,  a>  it  was  not 
directed  to  them;  but  if  they  thought  one  of  the  parties  guilty  of 


1st  August,  1831.  31 

excess  by  the  act  of  battery,  they  would  not  find  all  guilty,  as  it 
was  not  like  the  case  where  parties  were  pursuing  an  unlavviul  act. 
The  act  then  of  one,  while  engaged,  was  the  act  of  all ;  but  where 
they  were  lawfully  engaged,  the  act  of  one  was  not  consequently 
the  act  of  all,  but  must  only  be  dealt  with  individually.  Mis  Lord- 
ship could  not  help  remarking  that  the  handcutfing  was,  to  say 
the  least  of  it.  a  very  harsh  proceeding  towards  a  lady  and  gentle- 
man who  had  been  perfectly  civil  and  quiet,  and  had  offered  no 
resistance,  and  whose  station  in  life  was  ihat  of  a  gentleman — the 
son  of  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England. 

The  Jury  retired  for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  returned, 
finding  a  verdict  of  50/.  for  the  plaintiff  against  the  defendant,  Mr. 
Bingham  Baring, /or  the  battery,  and  that  all  the  other  defendants 
were  justified  by  the  warrant. 

This  verdict  seemed  to  excite  the  greatest  astonishment;  for 
most  of  the  Bar,  and  almost  every  one  in  Court  said,  if  on  the 
jury,  they  would  have  given  at  least  5,000/.  for  so  gross  and  want- 
on an  insult,  and  unfeeling  conduct  towards  those  who  had  not 
offered  the  least  resistance,  the  defendants  not  adducing  the  slight- 
est  evidence  iu  palliation,  or  attemptiiig  to  justify  it. 

Mrs.  Deacle  was  in  Court  ;  she  is  a  very  delicate,  lady-like 
woman.  The  case  seemed  to  excite  the  greatest  interest,  the  Court 
being  crowded  to  excess  the  whole  time. 

Very  well,  now  you  have  read  all  that.  The  London  news- 
papers bursted  forth  on  the  day  when  this  report  was  pub- 
lished, in  loud  invectives  against  Bingkam  Baring  ;  and 
this  broQojht  the  matter  into  the  famous  Flouse  of  Commons  ; 
but,  before  I  proceed  to  relate  to  you  what  is  reported  to 
have  passed  there,  I  must  describe  to  you,  who  and  what 
these  parties  were  who  were  proceeded  against  by  Mr. 
Deacle.  Francis  Thomas  Baring  is  the  eldest  son 
of  Sir  Thomas  Baring,  of  Stratton  Park,  and  this  son, 
who  is  a  Hampshire  Magistrate,  is  a  member  of  Parliament 
for  Portsmouth,  is  a  nephew,  by  marriage^  of  Lord  Grey, 
and  is  one  of  the  Lords  of  the  Treasury,  for  which  he  has  a 
thousand  pounds  a  year.  William  Bingham  Baring, 
who  is  also  a  Hampshire  magistrate,  is  the  eldest  son  of 
Alexander  Baring,  of  the  Grange  Park,  whose  wife  is 
a  daughter  of  old  William  Bingham,  of  Philadelphia  ; 
and  this  Bingham  Baring  is  the  man  for  striking  whom, 
•on  Friday,  the  19th  of  November,  Cook,  the  ploughman,  of 


32  Two-penny  Trash; 

Micheldcver,  was  hanged  ;  this  Bahing   being,  the  next 
da\^  (after  the  striking),  walking  in  the  streets  of  AVinchester, 
and    being  presented  at  the  King's   Court  in   London,  on 
Monday  the  22nd  of  November.     Nevill,  whose  name  is 
William,   is  the   eldest    son  of  the  old  County  Justice, 
Nevill,  who  lived  at  Easton,  near  Winchester.  This  young 
Nevill   is  called   Captain,  and    is   a   lieutenant  in    the 
navy,   and  not  a    magistrate.     W  hi  gut   is  a  parson,  the 
son  of  Parson  Robert    Wright,  who  has  the  living  of 
Jtchen,  and  also  the  living  of  Southwick,  and  this  Parson 
Robert  Wright  is  not  a  magistrate,  but  his  father  is, 
and   was  the  magistrate  before   whom   Cook   of  Michel- 
dcver was  taken  for  striking  Bingham  Baring,  and  this 
parson  appeared  as  a  v.itness  to  prove  that  Cook  acknow- 
ledged that  he  struck  Bingham  Baring.  Seagrim  is  an 
Attorney  at  Winchester,  and  the  partner  of  VVoodham, 
.  who  is  deputy  Clerk  of  the  Peace  for  the  county ;  and,  ac- 
cording   to    the    report  of    the   Parliamentary     speech   of 
Francis    Thomas    Baring,   this  Woodham    appears 
to  be  the  Attorney  of  the  Barings,  both  Francis  and 
Bingham, 

Now,  you  know  the  parties,  and  you  have  read  the  report 
of  the  evidence  of  the  two  constables,  Mr.  Lewington 
and  Mr.  SwiTZER,and  of  the  maid-servant  of  Mrs. 
Deacle.  There  the  matter  was,  for  the  nation  to  make  its 
remarks  upon,  and  for  the  people  of  Hampshire  to  be  guided 
by  in  their  judgment  of,  and  their  feeling  tow^ards,  these 
parties.  But  a  Mr.  Evans,  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  seeing  this  account  of  these  matters,  made  a 
motion,  of  which  he  had  given  notice,  that  a  copy  of  the 
indictment  against  these  parties,  and  that  the  judge's  notes, 
taken  at  the  trial,  should  be  laid  before  the  House.  Upon 
this  the  Barings  came  forth,  according  to  the  reports  pub- 
lished in  the  newspapers.     A  debate  took  place,  and  Mr. 


1st  August,  1831.  33 

Evans's  motion  was  negatived  without  a  division  !  And 
thus  it  would  appear  that  the  Barings  were  quite  cleared 
of  all  that  is  contained  in  the  evidence  of  Mr.  Lewington, 
Mr,  SwiTZER,  and  the  servant-girl.  In  the  House  of 
Comrnons  they  might  say  just  what  they  pleased  ;  and  if 
Mr.  Deacle  had  been  in  the  gallery  and  had  called  out  to 
contradict  them,  he  would  have  been  seized  and  imprisoned 
without  ceremony,  for  opening  his  lips.  There  was  nobody 
to  contradict  them  ;  they  might  go  on  just  as  they  pleased  ; 
they  might  have  abased  witnesses,  jury,  counsel^  judge  and 
all ;  and  yet  no  one  would  have  dared  to  say  a  word  ia 
contradiction.  My  good  friends,  that  which  men  say  under 
such  circumstances  ought  to  pass  for  nothing,  much  less 
ought  it  to  pass  for  something  to  invalidate  what  men  have 
declared  upon  their  oaths  before  a  judge  and  jury,  and  ex- 
posed to  the  searchings  and  siftings  of,  counsel  on  the  other 
side.  No  ;  that  which  was  sworn  by  Lewington,  Switzer, 
and  the  girl,  remains  wholly  unshaken,  until  we  shall  make 
up  our  minds  to  believe,  that  the  bare  words  of  men  who 
are  accused  are  worth  more  than  the  oaths  of  impartial  per- 
sons who  come  to  be  witnesses  against  them.  I  believe,  and 
you  must  believe,  all  that  the  sworn  witnesses  said  ;  you 
must  believe,  too,  as  well  as  I  do,  that  the  jury  believed 
those  witnesses,  and  that  the  judge  believed  them  ;  and  this 
parliamentary  tale  must  pass  for  nothing  in  the  way  of  vin- 
dicating any  of  the  accused  parties.  But  in  another  point 
of  view,  this  House-of- Commons  affair  is  of  great  import- 
ance ;  as  a  channel  for  the  spreading  of  atrocious  libels  oa 
individuals  out  of  the  House,  it  is  a  thing  that  interests  us 
all ;  and  I  shall  now  proceed  to  point  out  to  you  what  those 
libels  are,  and  by  whom  they  have  been  published.  The 
reporter  of  the  debate  tells  us,  that  Lord  Althorp,  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  said,  that  ^'  he  had 
"  the  pleasure  of  knowi7ig  Mr,  Bingham  Baring,  and 

c  5 


34  Two-penny  Trash; 

*^  from  that  knowledge  he  had  always  felt  a  difficulty  in  giv- 
*'  ing  credit  to  the  statements  made  respecting  his  conduct. 
"  If  there  was  a  man  in  the  world  less  likely  than  another 
"  to  commit  an  act  of  cruelty,  it  was  his  hoii.  friend^ 
These  are  words  of  no  consequence  to  us.  It  may  be  well 
enough  to  know,  that  Lord  Altiiorp  is  such  an  intimate 
friend  of  these  Barings  ;  but  though  he  knows  Bingham 
Baring  to  be  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  commit  an  act 
of  cruelty,  that  is  not  to  have  any  weight  with  us,  when 
opposed  to  Lewington's  evidence  about  the  handcuffing 
and  the  trotting  of  the  cart,  and  the  refusing  of  the  horse 
for  Mrs.  Deacle  to  ride  upon.  Besides,  this  Lord  does  not 
say  that  Bingham  Baring  is  the  last  man  in  the  world 
to  do  such  things  as  these,  or  to  strike  Mr.  Deacle  -,  and 
this  Lord  may  not  look  upon  these  as  being  acts  of  cruelty. 
So  that  all  that  we  learn  from  this  is,  that  Lord  Altiiorp 
is  a  most  intimate  friend  of  Bingham  Baring,  and  that 
Bingham  Baring  has  never  been  cruel  to  him. 

jSfow  for  the  libels.  These  were  published  in  the  Mornijig 
Chronicle  of  the  22d  of  July,  headed.  Imperial  Parlia?nent 
of  Great  Britain:  House  of  Commons ;  and  the  several  libels 
are  published  under  the  names  of  Sir  James  ScaPvLEtt, 
Thomas  Francis  Baring,  Carter,  and  Wilde,  the 
verv  well-known  lawyer,  w-hose  Christian  name  I  no  not 
know.  These  things  which  I  am  about  to  remark  on,  I  do 
not  impute  to  Scarlett,  Baring,  and  Wilde  ;  but  solely 
to  the  proprietor  of  the  Morning  Chronicle,  who  puts  the 
atrocious  libels  forth.  Under  the  name  of  Scarlett,  the 
abominable  libeller  has  these  words :  **  The  object,  no 
"  doubt,  was  to  put  together  as  defendants,  those  who,  if 
'-  they  had  not  been  placed  in  such  a  position,  might  have 
*^  disproved  the  accusation.  The  case  was,  no  doubt,  there- 
**  fore,  mis-stated,  exaggerated,  and  probably,  prot'ecZ  by 
^^  false  evidence!^     Thus,  my  friends/ Mr.  Leavington, 


1st  August,  1831.  35 

Mr.  SwiTZER,  and  the  servant-girl,  are  all  accused,  by  this 
infamous  libeller,  as  having  perjured  themselves.  And  has 
Mr.  Le  WING  TON  and  the  others  no  re?nedy  against  this 
libeller?  aye,  has  he.  He  cannot  bring  his  action  against 
the  fellow  to  whom  the  w^ords  are  imputed ;  because  a  man 
cannot  be  called  upon  out  of  Parliament  for  what  he  has 
said  there.  These  are  not  the  words  of  Scarlett,  mijid  ; 
they  are  the  words  of  the  person  who  has  published  them ; 
and  his  asserting  that  he  heard  them  uttered  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  even  if  he  could  prove  it,  is  no  justification  of 
him  for  having  sent  them  forth  to  the  world.  I,  therefore, 
recommend  to  Mr.  Lewington  instantly  to  bring  an  action 
against  the  libeller ;  and  the  same  ought  to  be  done  by  the 
other  two  parties,  who  are  thus  plainly  accused  of  perjury. 

Under  the  name  of  John  Carter,  w-hom  the  re-^ 
porter  makes  to  call  Bingham  Baring  his  honourable 
friend,  the  libeller  has  this  passage  :  *^  His  honourable  friend, 
the  member  for  Callington,  had  met  the  charge"  (of  putting 
on  the  hand-cuffs)  ''  by  the  statement,  a  statement  most  dis- 
"  tinctly  proved,  that  Mr.  Bingham  Baring  was  not 
^'  in  the  room,  or  the  house,  and,  therefore,  could  not  have 
"  given  such  orders/'  This  Carter  is  a  member  for 
Portsmouth,  and  the  colleague  of  Francis  Thomas  Ba- 
king, the  Lord  of  the  Treasury ;  but,  these  are  not  the 
words  of  Carter,  observe ;  his  name  is  made  use  of  in  the 
publication,  but  the  words  are  the  words  of  the  publisher; 
and  for  them  he  is  answerable  ;  and  these  w^ords  say,  in 
fact,  that  it  is  distinctly  proved  that  Lewington  swore 
to  what  was  false.  What  does  the  libeller  mean  by  ''  a 
statement  distinctly  proved  V  What  statement  does  he 
allude  to  ?  Why,  the  statement  contained  in  the  atrocious 
libel  which  is  contained  in^the  same  paper,  and  published 
under  the  name  of  the  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  Proved !  how 
proved  I  Who  can  prove  it 'J  or,  at  least,  who  has  proved  it  I 


36  Two-Penny  Trash; 

So,  this  libeller  deems,  as  proof,  that  which  one  of  the 
accused  parties,  he  says,  has  staled  upon  his  bare  word^ 
opposed  to  the  oaths  of  sworn  witnesses.  In  the  libel  pub- 
lished under  the  name  of  Scarlett,  it  is  said  that  all  these 
parties  were  put  into  the  same  net,  in  order  to  deprive  son^p 
of  being  witnesses  for  the  others.  "  Same  net,'^  indeed  ! 
Why  were  not  dozens  of  men  put  into  the  **  same  net"  at 
the  special  commission  ?  Were  there  not  eight  in  th<e 
*'  same  net'^  with  Thomas  Berryman  and  James 
Pearce,  though  six  of  them  were  acquitted]  How  many 
nets  of  this  sort  were  there  during  the  special  commissions! 
The  parties  all  went  together.  They  were  all  concerned  in 
the  thing  in  one  way  or  another.  Mr.  Deane,  the  banker, 
w^ho  went  with  them,  took  no  brutal  part,  and  was,  therefore, 
not  sued.  Why  w-as  not  he  called,  if  Lewington  s'  evidence 
was  not  true  }  The  libeller  says,  in  the  same  paper,  under 
the  name  of  Alexander  Baring,  that  Mr.  Deane  was 
not  in  a  situation  to  prove  any-thing.  Situation  !  why,  he 
was  there,  and  the  only  difference  was,  between  him  and  the 
rest,  that  he  took  no  part  in  the  things  that  the  others  were 
accused  of.  If  he  were  not  in  the  house,  he  could,  at  any 
rate,  have  been  brought  to  show  v/hat  was  the  general  de- 
portment of  the  other  parties ;  and  whether  he  knew  any- 
thing of  the  PISTOL,  of  which  Mr.  Lewington  speaks, 
which  is  so  very  characteristic  of  the  conduct  of  the  par- 
ties, so  strongly  corroborative  of  all  that  Lewington  has 
sworn  to,  and  which  has  been  so  completely  glided  over  by 
all  the  whole  of  this  rigmarole  lying  libel. 

We  now  come  to  the  atrocious  libel  which  the  Morning 
Chronicle  has  published,  calling  it  the  speech  of  Francis 
Baring,  that  is  to  say,  the  member  for  Portsmouth,  and 
Lord  of  the  Treasury,  who  has  a  thousand  pounds  a  year  of 
the  public  money.  Under  this  name,  and  in  order  thus  to 
give  weight  and  currency  to  his  abominable  lies,  the  libeller 


1st  August,  1831.  37 

has  pretended  that  this  Baring  read  certain  depositions,  the 
first  of  which  he  represented  to  have  been  made  by  the 
Bailiff  of  the  Earl  of  Northesk!  The  libeller  says,  that 
this  deposition  states  the  Bailiff  to  have  sworn  that  there 
was  a  large  mob,  and  a  female  on  horseback  in  the  midst  of 
them,  and  that  he  was  told  that  it  was  Mrs.  Deacle.  The 
next  deposition  that  the  libeller  mentions  was  that  of 
Pa.rson  Wright  (one  of  the  defendants);  and  he  says 
that  this  deposition  said  that  the  swearer  saw  a  lady  on 
horseback  in  the  midst  of  a  mob ;  and  that  one  of  the  men 
informed  him  that  the  party  got  ten  pounds,  and  that  a  per- 
S071  told  him  that  this  lady  was  Mrs.  Deacle.  After  this, 
the  atrocious  libeller  goes  on  to  state,  that  the  lady  rode  in 
the  front  of  the  mob;  that  Mr.  Deacle  was  with  the  mob 
when  they  collected  money;  that  Deacle  was  present  vath 
Boyes  and  others  when  the  mob  broke  machines  and  de- 
manded money;  that  Mrs.  Deacle  was  with  them  at  the 
same  time,  and  that  *'  she  employed  the  influence  of  her  sex 
and  the  power  of  her  station  to  ruin  the  poor  and  ignorant 
who  lived  in  her  neighbourhood."  Here  are  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Deacle,  accused  by  this  villanous  libeller,  of  felony  ;  and 
shall  this  infamous  hbeller,  this  impudent  and  brazen  libel- 
ler; this  destroyer  of  private  character;  shall  this  editor  of 
the  Morning  Chronicle,  or  publisher,  or  whatever  he  may 
be,  thus  send  all  over  the  world  a  charge  of  felony  and  re- 
peated felonies  against  a  man  and  his  wife,  w^ho,  observe, 
were  indicted  for  these  pretended  felonies,  had  the  bill  found 
against  them,  but  were  acquitted,  from  the  Crown  lawyers 
not  having  found  evidence  by  which  they  could  face  them  in 
a  court !  It  is  all  an  atrocious  lie,  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end.  Mr.  Deacle  had  had  his  own  thrashing-machine 
broken,  and  he  and  his  wife  were  running  and  riding  about 
most  anxiously  endeavouring  to  assuage  the  fury  of  the 
people ;  and  particularly  to  protect  their  female  neighbours 


38  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

who  had  houses  or  farms,  without  husbands  to  defend  them; 
and  yet  this  atrocious  libeller,  this  impudent  libeller> 
takes  the  name  of  a  member  of  Parliament,  and  a  Lord 
of  the  Treasury,  and,  under  this  name,  proclaims  to 
the  whole  world  that  this  man  and  his  wife  were  guilty  of 
felony. 

Mark,  too,  the  sequel.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle  were 
dragged  away,  hand-cuffed,  to  a  prison.  That  is  not  denied? 
at  any  rate.  They  were  sent  out  of  the  prison,  very  soon 
afterwards,  and  Mr.  Deacle  without  bail!  What!  go  and 
seize  a  man,  cause  him  to  be  hand-cuffed,  contrary  to  the 
constable's  remonstrances ;  put  him  and  his  wife  into  a  com- 
mon coal'Cart,  put  them  into  a  jail  amongst  felons;  and 
then  turn  them  out  without  examination  before  magistrates, 
without  being  confronted  with  their  accusers,  and  one  with- 
out bail  or  sureties  of  any  sort ;  indict  them  afterwards,  ^et 
the  bill  found,  and  then  give  up  the  prosecution  !  after  all 
this,  this  infamous  wretch,  this  brazen  liar  and  libeller,  this 
publisher  of  the  Morning  Chronicle,  is  to  send  all  over  the 
world,  in  the  form  of  a  pretended  parliamentary  debate,  a 
charge  of  repeated  felonies  committed  by  this  gentleman  and 
his  wife.  Why,  if  they  did  do  these  things  ;  if  Mr.  Deacle 
did  instigate  the  mob  to  break  the  machines  and  extort 
money  ;  if  Mrs.  Deacle  did  ride  in  front  of  them,  and  act, 
as  it  were,  as  commander  of  a  band  of  robbers,  why  wer« 
they  not  hanged,  as  well  as  Cooper,  who  was  not  even 
accused  of  having  done  a  tenth  part  so  much  ?  That  there 
was  no  want  of  a  desire  to  blacken  and  to  punish  them  is 
clear  enough,  from  the  treatment  they  received ;  clear 
enough,  from  the  hand-cuffing,  from  the  trotting  in  the  coal- 
cart  ;  from  the  refusal  of  the  horse,  from  the  pulling  out  of 
ih^  pistol',  that  there  was  desire  enough  to  punish  them  is 
quite  clear  ;  yet  they  were  not  punished :  what  further  proof 
do  we  want  of  their  complete  innocence  1  and  yet  this  infa- 


1st  August,  1831.  39 

mous  publisher  of  pretended  speeches  still  insists  that  they 
were  guilty  of  numerous  felonies  ! 

This  libeller,  however,  like  most  liars,  fails  in  point  of 
memory.  In  this,  his  publication,,  he  says  that  the  Barings 
were  taken  by  surprise,  as  to  this  action  against  them  ;  or, 
he  says,  the  Barings  might  have  got  evidence  to  rebut  the 
charge.  What  an  atrocious  lie  !  They  must  have  had  notice 
of  action  in  the  month  of  January  last ;  and  the  following 
letters  published  in  The  Times  newspaper  of  the  22d  July, 
will  show  that  they  wer^  prepared  with  every- thing,  attorney 
and  all,  in  the  month  of  April  last: 

*'  TO  WILLIAM  BINGHAM  BARING,  ESQ.,  M.P.,  &C. 

'*  Sir, — I  am  iostructcd  by  Mr.  Deacle  to  serve  you  with  the  no- 
tices herewith  sent,  and  I  truly  represent  his  motives  and  feelings 
Avhen  I  assure  you  that  his  object  is  a  public  vindication  of  his  own 
conduct,  and  a  reparation  for,  and  not  a  resentful  exposure  of,  the 
unjustifiable  treatment  which  he  has  received  at  your  hands. 

'*  He  entertains  no  doubt,  after  what  passed  at  the  late  Winches- 
ter assizes  (when  the  prosecution  against  him  was  arifully  aban- 
doned by  the  counsel  for  the  prosecutors  at  the  moment  when  his 
defence  would  have  exhibited, its  injustice  and  total  want  of  founda- 
tion), that  any  high-minded  and  honourable  man  would  reflect 
with  sorrow  and  reg-ret  on  the  injury  and  suffering  which  he  and 
Mrs.  Deacle  have  undergone. 

'*  That  you.  Sir,  as  a  magistrate,  from  certain,  however  erro- 
neous, information,  should  have  actively  assisted  in  any  judicial 
inquiry,  would  form  no  ground  of  complatnt ;  but  that  any  circum- 
stances, under  any  excitement,  should  have  betrayed  a  gentleman 
of  education  and  station  to  handcuff  a  respectable  individual,  his 
equal  in  education,  and  afterwards  to  strike  that  handcuffed  indi'- 
vidual,  when  perfectly  peaceable,  inoffensive,  aiul  suj)missive,  im- 
peratively calls  upon  Mr.  Deacle  to  appeal  to  those  laws  which 
have  been  so  grievously  violated  in  his  person. 

*'  Mr.  Deacle  disclaims  every  surdid  view,  but  seeks  such 
amends  and  explanation  as  would  satisfy  justice — such  as  an 
honourable  man  might  proffer,  and  such  as  a  respectable  and  in- 
jured individual  might  and  ought  to  receive. 

**  Believe  me.  Sir,  I  shall  be  more  gratified  by  a  course  of  con- 
duct from  you  which  would  heal  Mr.  Deacle's  feelings,  and  reflect 
credit  on  your  own,  than  in  any  triumph  or  compensation  which  a 
court  of  justice  would  award. 

^*  1  have  the  honour  to  remain.  Sir,  very  respectfully.. 
Your  obedient  and  faithful  servant, 

*'  JOHN  VV,  BRADFORD. 

"  Lang^ord,  near  Bristol,  April  7." 


40  Two-penny  Trash; 

*'  Sir, — I  have  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  the  notices  which 
you  have  been  directed  to  send  me  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Deacle.  I 
have  transmitted  them  to  Mr.  Woodhani  at  Winchester,  with  di- 
rections to  take  such  measures  as  may  be  necessary  for  my  defence. 

**  I  have  the  honour  to  be,  Sir, 

'^  Your  obedient  servant, 
''London,  April  20.  *«  W.  B.  BARING. 

**  John  Bradford,  Esq." 
[The  letter  to  Mr.  Francis  Baring:  was,  almost  totidem  verbis,  the 
same  as  that  sent  to  Mr.  Bingham  Baring-.J 

''  17,  New-street,  Spring-gardens,  April  11. 
*'  Sir, — I  have  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  letter,  with  the 
accompanying  notices. 

*'  Mr.  Woodham,  clerk  of  the  peace  at  Winchester,  has  my  di- 
rections to  act  as  my  attorney  in  my  defence  against  the  actions  in 
questiou.  "  I  am,  Sir,  your  obedient  servant, 

*'  F.  BARING." 

And  yet  the  infamous  libeller  says  that  the  unsuspecting 
Barings  were  taken  by  surprise,  and  insinuates  that  they 
had  not  time  to  collect  witnesses.  In  another  respect,  the 
libeller  is  unfortunate  in  point  of  memory.  In  one  part  of 
the  libel  he  says  that  a  cart  w-as  preferred  to  a  post-chaise 
lest  the  appearance  of  a  post-chaise  should  have  been  a  sort 
of  signal  for  the  neighbourhood  to  rise  and  make  a  rescue. 
Now  mark  this  :  this  is  the  reason  which  the  base  libeller 
states  for  taking  a  common  coal-cart  to  bring  Mrs.  Deacle 
in ;  but_,  forgetting  himself,  he  afterwards  says,  that  Mr. 
Deane  did  not  see  the  transactions  complained  of,  because 
*'  he  left  the  cart  on  its  arrival  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Deacle, 
'*  and  hurried  back  to  Winchester  to  j^rocwre  a  post-chaise  J^ 
What,  the  devil !  bring  a  post-chaise  to  *'  rouse  the  neigh- 
hourhood  and  cause  a  rescue!'^  Here  the  lying  libeller  is 
fairly  caught.  In  his  eagerness  to  rescue  the  Barings  and 
the  others  from  the  charge,  Nevill^  Wright,  and  Sea- 
grim,  as  well  as  the  Barings  :  in  order  to  clear  them  of 
the  charge  of  having  premeditated  the  coal-cart  for  the 
sake  of  cruelty  and  insult,  this  infamous  libeller  says  that  it 
would  have  been  dangerous  to  take  a  post-chaise ;  but, in  order 
to  account  for  not  calling  Mr.  Deane  in  defence  as  a  wit- 


1st  August,  1831.  ^ 

ness,  they  are  obliged  to  say  he  was  gone  back  to  Winches- 
ter for  a  post-chaise  to  bring  into  that  very  dangerous 
country;  but  could  not  they  have  called  Mr.  DEANEtoshov^ 
that  they  were  liurnane  enough  to  send  back  for  the  post' 
chaise  ?  and  that  they  had  grown  humane  after  tliey  had 
ordered  the  coal-cart.  Could  not  they  have  called  ^Jr. 
Deane  to  prove  that  he  Avas  not  shocked  at  their  pro- 
ceedings, and  that  he  himself  did  not  go  and  get  the  post- 
chaise,  as  a  suggestion  of  his  own  ?  In  short,  the  men  who 
ordered  the  coal-cart  had  either  nothing  to  do  with  the  post- 
chaise,  or,  if  they  had,  all  the  excuses  for  employing  the 
coal-cart,  and  all  excuses  for  trotting  the  cart,  and  the  re- 
fusing of  the  bonnet 'and  the  shav/1,  are  contemptible  lies. 
But,  the  horse  ;  the  excuse  is,  that,  to  have  allowed  time  for 
saddling  the  horse  (one  minute),  even  that  could  not  be 
allowed  on  account  of  the  critical  state  of  the  country !  Just 
as  if  the  horse  would  not  have  moved  faster  and  quieter  than 
a  cart,  and  with  less  suspicion ;  and  just  as  if  these  five 
heroes,  the  two  Barings,  the  Parson,  the  Captain,  and 
Seagrim,  all  on  horseback,  were  not  of  force  sufficient  to 
guard  one  little  woman.  Besides,  of  all  things  in  the  world, 
what  so  likely  to  rouse  the  neighbourhood  as  to  see  a  gentle- 
man and  a  lady  hoisted  into  a  coal- cart  in  their  own  yard, 
she  without  a  bonnet  or  shawl,  and  he  hand-cuffed,  and  thus 
driven  off  at  noon- day  \  'Tis  all  a  lie,  therefore,  on  the  part 
of  this  infamous  libeller :  the  scoundrels  about  the  country 
may  cheer  the  libellous  villain  till  their  throats  be  sore ;  but 
ih^' coal- cart ^  the  hand-cujftng ,  the  trotting  of  the  horse, 
the  striking  of  the  gentleman  while  in  hand-cuffs,  the  pull- 
ing out  of  the  pistol,  accompanied  wdth  menaces ;  these 
things,  stack  on  by  the  sworn  evidence  of  Lewingtox,  will 
never  be  rubbed  off  in  the  opinion  of  any  sensible  man. 

I  now  come  to  the  most  infamous  libel  of  all ;  namely, 
that  which  the  publisher  of  the  Chronicle  has  put  forth  in 


42  Two-penny  Trash; 

the  paper  before-mentioned,  under  the  name  of  "  Mr. 
Wilde,'^  manifestly  meaning  Sarjeant  Wilde,  of  whom 
you  may  have  read  an  account,  about  a  year  ago,  in  the  re- 
port of  some  very  interesting  proceedings  in  Chancery,  of 
which  I  shall  probably  have  to  say  more  when  I  come  to 
speak  of  what  w-as  done  in  the  case  of  that  w^orthy  man, 
Farmer  Boyes,  of  Owselbury.  The  libeller  aforesaid,  that 
is  to  say,  the  editor  of  the  Chronicle^  publishes  in  the  pa- 
per before-mentioned,  in  the  report  of  a  speech  which  he  im- 
putes to  this  Wilde,  the  following  most  infamous  libel  on  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Deacle.  These  are  the  words: — '-  In  one  case 
*'  the  mob  went  to  the  house  of  a  Mrs.  Long,  headed  hy 
*^  Deacle  and  Boyes,  and  having  compelled  her  to  sign  a 
paper  for  the  reduction  of  rent,  they  afterwards  demanded 
money.  Fifteen  pounds  were  demanded  at  first,  but  they 
afterw^ards  consented  to  take  five;  and  after  having  spent 
the  day  in  making  collections  of  this  kind,  they  adjourned 
*^  to  the  Downs,  where  Mr.  Deacle  and  Mrs.  Deacle,  who 
'^  was  also  present,  superintended  the  distribution  of  the 
^^  money,  (Hear,  hear.)  He  was,  indeed,  thoroughly  satis- 
^^  fied  tbat  but  for  the  sanction  of  their  proceedings,  and  the 
*'  countenance  and  encouragement  the  mobs  received  from 
'^  Boyes  and  the  Deacles  at  the  outset,  that  the  riots  would 
*^  not  have  proceeded  so  far ^  nor  the  misguided  and  ignO' 
^^  rant  labourers  have  acted  as  they  didJ*     ' 

Now,  we  know  that  this  is  an  atrocious  lie.  Here  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Deacle  are  accused  most  distinctly  of  having 
committed  acts  of  felony;  the  punishment  of  which  would 
be  loss  of  liberty,  forfeiture  of  all  property,  and  forfeiture  of 
life,  if  the  judges  chose.  It  is  frequently  said  that  we  live 
in  strange  times;  and  strange,  indeed,  they  are,  if  a  black- 
guard, mercenary,  newspaper  fellow  can  spread  all  over  the 
world  libels  like  these  with  impunity.  I  impute  not  this 
speech  to  Wilde,  mind  you:  I  know  nothing  about  what 


« 


1st  August,  1831.  43 


Wilde  said,  or  might  say,  or  did  not  say  ;  but  I  know  that 
here  are  most  infamous  and  malicious  lies,  published  by  this 
newspaper  ruffian,  with  a  view  of  white- washing  the  Bar- 
ings and  their  associates.     If  T  am  asked  what  could  induce 
the  ruffian  to  put  forward  such  lies,  I  answer,  %Yhat  can  induce 
any  ruffian  to  publish  any  lie  ?     What  can  induce  any  vil- 
lain to  do  a  viilanous  deed?      Such  deeds  are  generally  com- 
mitted for  the  sake  of  gain,  in  one  shape  or  another;  this 
species  of  ruffian  generally  gets  his  palm  greased ;  or  is  ac- 
tuated by  some  hope  that  he  has  of  getting  it  well  greased  in 
some  shape  or  another.     However,  it  is  sufficient  for  me  to  lay 
before  you  the  act;  for  this  is  one  of  those  overt  acts,  those 
flagrant  and  open  and  impious  lies,  that  all  you  have  to  do  is  to 
look  at  the  acts  to  be  convinced  of  the  base  and  execrable  in- 
tention of  the  atrocious  libeller  who  has  committed  the  acts. 
What  adds  greatly  to  the  infamy  of  this  libel  k,  that  it 
is  published  under  the  name  of  a  man  who  was  one  of  the 
Commissioners ;  that  is  to  say,  one  of  the  Judges  in  the 
Special  Commission  appointed  to  try  the  cases  in  Hamp- 
shire in  the  month  of  December  last ;  and  here  this  libeller 
makes  the  Judge  positively  say,  without  any  qualification, 
that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle  were  engaged  in  the  commis- 
sion of  divers  robberies,  and  that  they  both  superintended 
the  distribution  of  the  money  amongst  their  brother  robbers. 
Nay,  the  libeller  further  publishes,  under  the  name  of  this 
Judge,  that  had  it  not  been  for  them,  had  it  not  been  for 
their  countenance  of  the  robbers,  there  would  not  have  been 
so  many  robberies  as   there  were.     Talk  of  libels,  indeed  ; 
talk  of  licentiousness  of  the  press ;  if  a  libel  like  this  can 
pass  unpunished;  if  a   man  can  be  justified  for  publishing 
such  libels  under  the  pretence  of  their  being  speeches  in 
Parliament,  there  is  an  end  to  all  fafety  for  character,  pro- 
perty, and  life.     You  will  observe,  that  the  ruffian  publisher 
publishes  this  matter,  these  infamous  lies  on  the  Deacles, 


44  Two-penny  Trash- 

with  a  view  to  blacken  them,  to  make  them  appear  as  felons, 
and  as  the  doers  of  great  mischief;  and  all  this  in  order  to 
palliate  the  conduct  of  the  Barings  and  their  associates. 
80  that  if  publications  like  this  be  to  be  tolerated,  no  man 
will  in  future  ever  dare  to  seek  redress  for  any  wrong,  how- 
ever grievous,  done  to  him  by  another  who  has  a  great 
quantity  of  money  ;  for,  if  such  ruffians  be  tolerated  to  issue 
their  libels  in  this  Vv^ay,  it  is  certain  ruin  to  a  mau  of  modev- 
rate  property  to  bring  an  action  of  trespass  against  a  man 
who  has  a  monstrous  deal  of  money.  Vv^ith  great  quantities 
of  money  to  bestow  upon  ruffians  like  this,  any  man  may 
comm.it  on  any  other  man,  who  is  comparatively  poor,  any 
sort  of  oppression  that  he  chooses  ;  and  it  must  soon  become 
as  much  as  a  man's  life  is  worth  to  enter  a  court  of  justice 
opposed  to  a  man  Vvho  has  a  hundred  times  as  much  money 
as  himself. 

Mr.  Deacle  may  prosecute  this  Morning  Chronicle  for 
damages.  He  may  move  for  a  rule  to  show  cause  why  a 
criminal  information  should  not  be  filed  against  him ;  and, 
if  he  can  negative  the  assertions  by  affidavit,  which  we  know 
he  can,  the  rule  m.ust  be  made  absolute.  He  may  indict 
this  publisher  in  Westminster,  in  which  his  place  of  publi- 
cation is  situate.  What  he  will  do,  I  know  not ;  but  what 
lie  ought  to  do,  I  know  very  well ;  and,  though  I  knov/ 
nothing  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle,  I  cannot  be  made  to 
believe  that  they  v.  ill  quietly  be  libelled  in  this  manner. 
In  conclusion,  my  friends  of  Hampshire,  it  is  for  you  in 
particular  to  have  your  eye  steadily  upon  all  the  parties 
mentioned  in  this  address.  The  whole  nation  is  interested 
in  the  m^atter.  Every  man,  of  any  feeling  at  all,  feels 
for  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle.  Indeed,  it  is  the  cause  of  us 
all ;  for,  if  they  be  suffered  to  be  treated  in  this  manner, 
especially  as  this  libeller  has  treated  them,  not  a  man  of  us 
is  safe,  and,  in  fact,  we  are  all  wretched  slaves;  there  is  no 


1st  August,  1831.  45 

law  for  us  ;  there  is  no  safety  for  us;  and,  therefore,  unless 
we  all  think,  and  unless  you,  the  people  of  Hampshire^  both 
think  and  act  in  the  manner  that  you  ought  to  do  upon  this 
occasion,  we  may  bid  farewell  for  ever  to  all  security  for 
person,  property,  and  life;  and  that  fine  talk  about  an  En- 
glishman's house  being  his  castle,  is  the  most  contemptible 
castle  in  the  air  that  madman  ever  dreamed  of.  Above  ail 
things,  I  pray  you  be  not  amused  by  publications  like  that 
which  this  libeller  calls  a  speech  of  Lord  A  Ithorp.  Under 
the  name  of  this  Lord,  the  libeller  says,  while  he  is  accusing 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle  of  felony,  that  this  Bingham 
Baring  (whom  the  libeller  makes  this  Lord  call  his 
*^  honourable  friend*')  is  the  last  man  in  the  world  to 
commit  an  act  of  cruelty.  Despise  such  stuff  as  this  while 
you  have  Mr.  Lewington's  evidence  before  your  eyes. 
Despise  it.  Behold,  the  pretended  speeches  of  Scarlett, 
Alexander  Baring,  Mildmay,  and  Carter:  re- 
formers and  anti-reformers ;  some  for  the  bill,  some  against 
the  bill;  but  all  represented  by  this  libeller  as  joining  in  one 
general  cry  in  favour  of  Bingham  Baring  and  his  asso- 
ciates, and  in  abuse  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle,  and  of  the 
witnesses  on  the  trial.  Look  at  this  well,  my  friends  of 
Hampshire:  look  at  it  a  hundred  times  over:  see  the  glar- 
ing thing  in  its  true  light ;  then  act  as  becomes  you,  or  be 
slaves  for  ever.  I  hope  and  trust  that  you  will  do  the 
former;  and,  in  that  hope,  I  remain  your  faithful  friend 
and  most  obedient  servant, 

Wm.  COBBETT. 
Postscript. — I  intended  to  address  you  on  the  subject 
of  poor  farmer  Boyes,  and  on  the  infamous  libel  which  has 
been  published  against  him,  under  the  name  of  a  pretended 
speech  of  Serjeant  Wilde,  in  the  Morning  Chronicle 
above-mentioned.  I  have  not  left  room  to  myself  to  do 
that  subject  justice  in  the  present  number ;   but  be  you 


46  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

assured,  and  let  the  unliappy  family  of  farmer  Bo  yes  be 
assured,  that  every-thing  that  I  have  the  power  legally  to 
do,  shall  be  done  in  order  to  obtain  redress  for  the  wrongs 
done  to  farmer  Boyes  and  his  family  by  the  infamous  libel 
published  by  this  Morning  Chronicle  against  him. 

I  have  not  time  to  sa}'  what  I  intended  to  say  upon  the 
subject  of  tithes,  which  is  a  most  interesting  matter  to  you 
all ;  but,  upon  this  subject  let  me  exhort  you  to  be  vigilant, 
and  not  to  suffer  yourselves  to  be  deluded. 

On  the  subject  or  Emigration  I  had  much  to  say, 
and  I  have  now  before  me  the  official  documents  put 
forth  by  the  Emigration  Commissioners.  1  have  only  to 
say  to  you,  if  you  be  farmer,  tradesman,  labourer,  or  me- 
chanic, stand  fast ;  let  nobody  persuade  you  to  step  your 
foot  on  board  of  a  ship  unless  you  take  the  passage  your- 
selves on  board  of  an  Ajnerican  ship,  commanded  by  an 
American  captain,  and  bound  to  the  United  States  of  Ame- 
rica. I  exhort  you  to  attend  to  this ;  for  if  you  neglect  this 
advice,  you  will  lead  miserable  lives,  and  come  to  a  miser- 
able end,  and  this_is  the  firm  opinion  of  one  who  lias  had 
more  experience  in  such  matters  than  any  man  in  England. 


ONE  HAND  TIED. 

On  Wednesday,  the  20th  of  July,  as  the  Morning 
Chronicle  tells  us,  there  was  a  debate  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  the  Reform  Bill.  In  giving  an  account  of  this 
debate,  the  editor  of  the  Chronicle  makes  a  publication, 
under  the  name  of  Alexander  Baring,  of  the  Grange, 
in  the  follov/ing  words : — ^'  It  had  a  King,  Lords,  and 
*'  Commons — although  an  hon.  and  learned  Gentleman  had 
*'  told  his  constituents  that  half  the  Commons  was  nomi- 
"  nated  by  the  people  and  half  by  the  aristocracy.    He  (Mr. 


1st  August,  1831.  47 

^'  BariDg)^  for  one,  was  not  inclined  at  once  to  make  this 
*'  sweeping  change,  however  he  might  be  disposed  to  make 
**  some  alterations.  True  it  was  that  the  Commons  had 
^'  not,  at  present,  unlimited  power.  It  might  be  compared 
*^  to  a  man  with  one  hand  tied  behind  him  ;  the  people 
*^  required  that  the  other  hand  should  be  released,  and  the 
**  rational  answer  was,  '  No:  he  is  a  violent  dangerous 
**  fellow,  and  is  not  to  be  trusted  with  the  use  of  both 
**'  his  hands  J  If  the  other  hand  were  released,  it  would  be 
"  employed  in  the  destruction  of  the  people  who  demanded 
*'  that  it  should  be  set  at  liberty.  (Cheers.)  The  people 
^'  ought  only  to  have  that  degree  of  power  which  was  con- 
**  sistent  luith  their  own  interests ;  and  it  was  at  least 
*'  perilous  to  destroy  the  fabric  which  had  fostered  their 
^*  industry,  and  protected  their  liberties.  The  people 
^^  were  no  more  to  be  trusted  with  power  than  children 
*'  with  edge-tools,  (Hear,  hear.)  He  would  ask  this  sim- 
^*  pie  question — whether  the  influence  of  the  people  had 
*^  been  so  reduced  in  the  House  of  Commons,  as  to  render 
*'  it  necessary   to   reorganize  the   constitution  ?    (Cries    of 

*  Question.')  Taking  it  for  granted  that  half  the  House 
"  was  nominated  by  the  aristocracy,  he  contended  that  this 
"  state  of  things  was  advantageous,  inasmuch  as  it  miti- 
"  gated  democratic  power.  (Hear,  hear.)'' 

I  do  not  give  these  as  the  words  of  this  Baring;  I  give 
them  as  a  publication  in  a  newspaper,  imputing  them  to  the 
editor,  and  I  say  that  they  are  the  most  insolent  words ; 
that  they  contain  the  grossest  insult  that  ever  was  offered 
to  a  people,  and  that  ever  dropped  from  the  pen  of  baseness. 
The  insolent  wretch  who  penned  these  words  deserves  real 
punishment;  they  are  calculated  to  excite  indignation  and 
resentment  unquenchable ;  and  if  they  pass  with  impunity, 
with  what  face  can  the  Attorney- General  ever  again  pro- 
secute for  libel  ?     What !  the  people  represented  as  a  man 


4C 


43         Two-penny  Trash  •   1st  August,  1831. 

'vith  one  band  tied  behind  him  ;  that  is  to  say,  half  en- 
slaved ;  and  when  they  require  that  the  other  hand  should 
be  released,  they  are  told  by  this  impudent  writer,  "  No; 
you  are  a  violent,  dangerous  fellow,  and  are  not  to  be  trusted 
with  the  use  of  both  your  hands."  There  have  been  lords 
and  lord  lings  who  have  been  insolent  enough;  but  never 
have  \i'e  yet  seen  insolence,  even  from  the  most  insolent  of 
them,  equal  to  the  insolence  of  this  paragraph,  which  tells 
the  people  that  they  are  no  more  to  be  trusted  with  power 
than  children  are  to  be  trusted  with  edge-tools!  If  Bixg- 
HAM  Barixg,  indeed,  had  had  one  hand  tied  behind  him, 
it  might  have  been  better  for  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle, 
especially  the  hand  in  which  he  carried  the  pistol  and  the 
stick! 

And  now,  my  friends  of  Hampshire,  reflect  on  all  these 
thiiigs ;  and  reflect  on  what  it  is  your  duty  to  do,  in  conse* 
quence  of  having  read  about  these  things;  resolve  to  do 
that  duty,  and  you  will  yet  see  happy  days ;  neglect  that 
duty,  and  you  and  your  children  will  be  slaves;  and  your 
slavery  will  be  the  more  disgraceful  to  you  because  your 
fathers  were  free,  and  were  distinguished  in  England  for 
their  freedom  and  their  spirit. 

I  am  your  friend, 

Wm.  COBBETT. 

N.B.  The  6th  number  of  Cobbett's  History  of  the  Re- 
gency and  Reign  of  George  IV.  is  just  published.  > 


CPriated  by  Wm.  Cobbett,  Johnson's-coart,  Fleet-street.] 


No.  3.  Vol.  II. 


COBBETT'S      * 
TWO-PENNY  TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  September,  1831. 


Published  monthli/,  sold  at  I2s.  Qd.  a  hundred,  and  for  300,  taken  at 

once,  \\s. 


A  LETTER  FROM  THE  LABOURERS  OF  THE  TEN 
LITTLE  HARD  PARISHES  TO  ALEXANDER 
BARING,  THE  LOANMONGER. 

Hard  Parishes,  \st  Septemleij  1831. 
LOAXMONGER, 

We  have  read  in  the  newspapers  what  is  called  a  speech 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  this  speech,  which  is  printed 
in  the  following  words,  the  newspaper-mongers  say,  was 
made  by  you. 

*'  The  constitution  of  England  had  a  King,  Lords,  and  Commons 
*'  — ahhough  an  hon.  and  learned  Gentleman  had  told  his  consti- 
*^  tuents  that  half  the  Commons  was  nominated  by  the  people  and 
*^  half  by  the  aristocracy.  He  (Mr.  Baring) ,  for  one,  was  not  in- 
*'  clined  at  once  to  make  this  sweeping  change,  however  he  might 
*'  be  disposed  to  make  some  alterations.  True  it  was  that  the  Com- 
*'  mons  had  not,  at  present,  unlimited  power.  It  might  be  compared 
*^  to  «  man  with  one  hand  tied  behind  hitn ;  the  people  required  that 
*^  the  other  hand  should  be  released,  and  the  rational  answer  was, 
**  *iVb :  he  is  a  violent  dangerous  fellow ,  and  is  not  to  be  trusted  with 
*'  the  use  of  both  his  hands*  If  the  other  hand  were  released,  it 
*'  would  be  employed  in  the  destruction  of  the  people  who  de- 
**  manded  that  it  should  be  set  at  liberty.     (Cheers.)     The  people 

London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street  j 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 


50  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

*'  ought  only  to  have  that  degree  of  power  which  was  consistent 
*'  with  their  oivn  interests  ;  and  it  was  at  least  perilous  to  destroy 
*'  the  fabric  which  hsid  fostered  their  industry,  and  protected  their 
•*  liberties.  The  people  were  no  more  to  be  trusted  with  power  than 
«'  children  with  edge-tools,  (Hear,  hear.)  He  would  ask  this 
**  simple  question — whether  the  influence  of  the  people  had  beea 
<^  so  reduced  in  the  House  of  Commons,  as  to  render  it  necessary 
*^  to  re-organize  the  constitution  ?  (Cries  of  *  Question.*)  Taking 
**  it  for  granted  that  half  the  House  was  nominated  by  the  aris- 
*'  tocracy,  he  contended  that  this  state  of  things  was  advantageous, 
**  inasmuch  as  it  mitigated  democirt  tic  power,     (Hear,  hear.)" 

This  is  the  speech  that  the  news- people  tell  us  you  made. 
Now,  then,  suppose  that  when  we  go  to  work  for  you,  or  for 
any  of  the  farmers  or  parsons,  w^e  were  to  go  with  one  hand 
tied  behind  us  :  what  would  be  said  to  us  J  We  should  be 
ordered  to  let  loose  the  other  hand,  and  to  go  to  work  di- 
rectly with  both  hands :  and  if  we  refused  to  do  this,  we, 
if  single  men,  should  be  told  to  starve ;  and  if  married  men, 
should  be  sent  to  old  Becket's  jail,  or  to  the  treadmill,  for 
not  working  with  both  hands  to  support  our  wives  and  fami- 
lies without  parish  relief  If  called  out  to  serve  in  the 
onilitia,  we  must  come  with  both  hands.  If  we  were  to 
come  with  one  hand  tied  behind  us,  we  should  receive  the 
word  of  command  to  let  it  loose  instantly ;  if  we  refused,  it 
would  be  let  loose  for  us ;  and  if  we  refused  to  use  both 
hands  in  handling  the  arms,  we  should  be  tied  up  and 
flogged. 

This  speech  is  said  to  have  been  made  by  you  in  a  debate 
upon  the  Reform  Bill,  which,  when  it  becomes  a  law, 
will  make  the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  more  the 
representatives  of  the  people  than  they  have  hitherto  been 
for  a  great  many  years.  To  this  (according  to  the  above 
speech)  you  object,  because  it  wall  let  loose  both  our  hands; 
and  because  the  common  people  are  like  **  a  violent  and 
"  dangerous  fellow  who  is  not  to  be  trusted  with  the  use 
"  of  both  his  hands''  In  another  part  of  the  speech  it  is 
said,  that  the  people  are  "  no  more  to  be  trusted  with  power 
than  children  with  edge- tools.''  These  are  very  insolent 
words,  Mr.  Loanmonger.  Whether  they  were  uttered  by 
you  or  not,  we  cannot  say ;  but  they  have  been  published  all 
over  the  kingdom  under  your  name,  and  we  have  seen  no 
publication  in  w^hich  you  disown  them. 

Let  us  talk  with  you  coolly  a  little  about  this  matter. 
When  it  is  a  question  about  the  enjoyment  of  rights  and 


1st  September,  1831.  51 

liberties,  we  are  violent  and  dangerous  poople^  and  are  not 
to  be  trusted  with  the  use  of  both  our  hands ;  we  are  to  be 
considered  as  children,  as  senseless  children,  or  as  madmea 
who  require  constant  restraint.     But  when  we  are  called 
upon  to  labour  for  the  rich,  or  to  take  up  arms  to  defend 
their  persons  and  their  property,  which  it  is  our  duty  to  do, 
if  we  ourselves  be  well  and  fairly  treated  :  we  by  no  means 
deny  this,  because  if  the  property  of  the  rich  were  not  pro- 
tected by  the  working  millions,  it  could  not  be  protected  at 
all,  and  then  there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  property ;  and 
then  any  little  things  that  we  ourselves  might  acquire  by 
our  industry,  care^  and  frugality,  would  be  taken  from  us  by 
the  idle  and  the  dissolute.     But  when  we  are  called  upon 
to  labour  for  the  rich,  or  to  fight  for  them,  then  we  are, 
during  the  time  that  we  so  labour  and  so  fight,  not  to  be 
deemed  unworthy  of  being  trusted  with  the  use  of  both  our 
hands ;  then  we  are  not,  during  that  time,  to  be  looked  upon 
as  dangerous  fellows  and  as  children.     Bayonets,  swords, 
and  lances,  are  edge-tools,  and  pretty  sharp  edge-tools  too; 
yet  we  are  to  be  trusted  with  them,  so  much  like  children  as 
we  are,  as  long  as  we  use  them  for  the  purposes  of  the  rich 
and  the  powerful.     Ah  !  Baring,  you  may  think  that  we 
are  brutally  ignorant ;  you  may  think  that  we  understand 
nothing  but  the  mere  labours  of  the  field  :   we  understand 
well  what  our  rights  are,  and  of  this  we  shall  convince  you, 
before  w^e  have  concluded  this  letter. 

We  observe,  and  have  long  observed,  that  the  working- 
people  of  England  are,  now-a-days,  by  those  v;ho  affect  to 
he  their  superiors,  and  the  greater  part  of  whom  live  upon 
the]  fruit  of  their  labour,  NOT  CALLED  THE  PEOPLE; 
not  called  the  COMMONS  OF  ENGLAND,  as  they  used 
to  be  called;  but  are  called  the  peasantry ,  the  population, 
the  lower  orders  ^  and  that  these  degrading  names  are 
given  to  every-body  that  does  not_,  in  some  way  or  other,  live 
in  idleness  upon  the  fruit  of  the  people's  labour.  The 
swarms  of  half-pay  oflBcers,  of  clerks  under  the  government, 
of  tax-gatherers,  and  of  parsons,  are  all  called  squires  or 
reverend  gentlemen.  The  jailers  are  called  governors,  and 
the  turnkeys  are  called  deputy -governors.  So  that  while 
those  who  raise  all  the  food,  and  make  all  the  houses  and 
all  the  clothing,  are  treated  as  if  they  were  something  a 
great  deal  lower  than  the  stock  upun  a  farm,  all  who  live 
upon  the  fruit  of  their  labour  are  considered  as  the  only 

D  2 


52  Two-penny  Trash; 

persons  in  the  kingdom  having  any  right  to  be  treated  with 
attention  and  kindness,  or  even  with  civility. 

Nay,  we  cannot  refrain  from  observing  how  suddenly 
even  we  ourselves  become  objects  to  be  caressed,  when  by 
chance  we  get  a  red  coat  upon  our  backs.  To-day  Jack 
Chopstick  is  one  of  the  lower  orders^  one  of  the  popu- 
lation, one  {)i  the  peasantry;  but  to-morrow,  though  one 
of  the  laziest  fellows  in  the  village,  and  one  of  the  most 
dissolute,  by  merely  taking  a  sum  of  money  from  the  fruit 
of  our  labour,  and  putting  a  red  coat  upon  his  backj  he  be- 
comes all  at  once  a  ^^  fine  fellow  ^^  "a  hero,''  and  he  re- 
ceives as  much  every  week  for  subsistence,  over  and  above 
lodging,  clothing,  fire,  and  candle  ;  over  and  above  these, 
the  very  lowest  of  the  "  fine  fellows ''  receives  as  much  ia 
a  week  as  the  magistrates  allow  for  the  maintenance  of  a 
man,  his  wife,  and  two  children,  without  any  allowance  for 
lodging,  clothing,  firing,  or  candle.  This  does  not  escape 
our  observation.  Baring.  We  do  not  grudge  the  soldier 
that  which  he  gets.  We,  for  our  parts,  cannot  see  why 
England  should  not  now  exist  without  a  standing  army  ia 
time  of  peace,  as  well  as  it  did  formerly  for  more  than  a 
thousand  years.  But  if  there  must  be  soldiers,  they  ought 
not  to  starve  any  more  than  other  men.  They  have  not  too 
Tnuch,  But  if  seven  shillings  and  seven-pence  a  week,  with 
clothing,  lodging,  fire  and  candle  into  the  bargain,  be  not 
too  much  for  the  single  lowest  soldier,  is  not  a  gallon  loaf 
and  sixpence  a  week  too  little  for  the  hard-working  married 
man,  who  is  allowed  neither  of  the  other  things  which  the 
soldier  has  ?  We  are  told  that  there  is  many  a  weaver  who 
works  sixteen  hours  every  day  of  his  life  at  labour  as  hard 
as  hedging  and  ditching,  and  who  has  not,  to  maintain  him- 
self and  his  family,  any-thing  like  so  much  as  that  which  is 
given  to  the  lowest  soldier  whose  pay  partly  comes  out  of 
the  fruit  of  that  poor  weaver's  earnings.  If  these  be  false- 
hoods, Baring,  proclaim  them  to  be  falsehoods  ;  if  they  be 
truths,  then  say  again,  if  you  like,  that  we  are  dangerous 
fellows,  and  ought  to  have  one  hand  still  tied  behind  us  : 
then  say,  if  you  like,  that  it  is  not  high  time  that  a  change 
should  take  place  and  that  another  sort  of  men  ought  not 
to  be  chosen  to  make  the  laws  and  impose  the  taxes. 

Another  curious  thing  we  have  observed,  and  that  is,  that 
all  those  who  live  upon  the  labour  of  the  people,  are  pro- 
vided for;  in  case  of  their  ceasing  to  receive  pay  for  services 


\ 


1st  September,  1831.  53 

real  or  pretended ;  we  observe  that,  in  these  cases,  they  are 
provided  for  by  pensions  or  allowances  for  the  whole  of 
the  rest  of  their  lives,  though  they  do  nothing  for  the  public 
and  pretend  to  do  nothing  for  the  public.  If  a  man  have- 
served  in  the  army,  or  in  the  navy  ;  if  he  have  been  a  clerk 
under  the  Government ;  if  he  have  been  a  tax-gatherer  of 
any  description ;  if  he  have  been  in  Government  employ  of 
any  sort,  he  has  pay  ybr  the  rest  of  his  life  in  one  shape  or 
another^  and  our  earnings  are  taken  from  us  in  order  to 
provide  the  means  of  that  pay.  Now,  Baring,  do  loan- 
mongers,  do  bankers,  do  merchants,  do  traders  of  any  de- 
scription, when  they  discharge  their  clerks,  give  them  pay  to 
the  end  of  their  lives  for  doing  nothing  ?  you  will  say  NO, 
to  be  sure.  When  you  want  a  clerk  no  longer,  or  when  he 
has  become  incapable  of  his  business,  you  cease  to  pay  him  j 
and  why  are  not  we  to  cease  to  pay  taxes  for  the  paying  of 
officers  and  clerks  who  have  been  in  the  service  of  the 
Government?  Even  common  soldiers,  and  in  the  prime  of 
life  too,  have  pensions  granted  them  for  life.  Have  these 
men  any  more  right  to  this  maintenance  than  any  plough- 
man or  weaver  has  ?  They  tell  us,  that  they  have  been 
^^  serving  their  king  and  country^''  and  have  they  not  been 
well  paid  for  it  all  the  while?  And  if  they,  even  when 
old  and  worn  out,  have  been  serving  their  king  and  country, 
have  not  the  weaver,  the  artizan,  and  the  ploughman,  who 
have  been  working  harder  and  living  harder  all  the  while  ; 
have  not  they  also  been  serving  their  king  and  country  ; 
and  have  they  pensions  given  them,  when  they  are  worn 
out?  They  have  Sturges  Bourne's  bills,  select  ves* 
tries,  and  hired  overseers  to  appeal  to  for  the  means  of 
their  miserable  existence,  after  they  have  left  the  marrow 
of  their  bones  in  the  fields  or  in  the  loom- shed.  There  are 
two  cases,  indeed,  in  which  it  would  be  just  to  give  pensions 
to  soldiers  or  sailors.  First,  in  the  case  of  wounds,  for  men 
are  not  likely  to  receive  Avounds  in  civil  life  ;  and  next,  in, 
the  case  of  men  impressed  or  forced  to  become  soldiers  or 
sailors  ;  but  if  a  man  enter  the  service  of  his  own  free-will ;  - 
if  it  be  his  choice  to  lead  the  life  of  soldier  or  sailor  rather 
than  continue  at  useful  labour,  what  right  has  that  man, 
even  in  his  old  age  and  w^orn-out  state,  to  any-thing  more 
than  relief  from  the  parish  in  the  usual  way  and  in  the 
usual  degree  f 

But,  our  complaint  on  this  score  does  not  stop  here* 


IfH  Two-penny  Trash  j 

This  speech  says  that  we  are  to  be  restrained,  we  are  to 
bave  one  hand  tied  behind  us  for  our  own  **  interest  i*'  and 
it  says,  that  it  is  '*  perilous  to  destroy  the  fabric  which  ha« 
fostered  our  industry  and  protected  our  liberties^*  We 
do  not  understand  what  you  mean  by  ^'fabric  ;"  but  we 
understand  that  you  mean,  that  the  present  mode  of  ruling 
us  has  fostered  our  industry.  To  foster  means  to  suckle j  to 
feed,  to  cherish.  Now,  Baring,  has  our  industry  been 
^fostered  by  the  magistrates*  order,  signed  by  your  brother 
Thomas  and  seven  others,  allowing  the  labouring  maa 
a  gallon  loaf  and  fourpence  a  week  to  live  upon  ?  Has  our 
industry  been  suckled  by  allowing  less  than  that  for  a 
mother  and  children  to  live  upon  ?  But,  that  we  may  not 
be  accused  of  misrepresentation,  we  will  here  copy  the  order 
and  regulation  to  which  we  allude.  Read  it,  Baring  j 
read  it,  all  England  ;  and  then  let  the  reader  of  it  say,  if  he 
can,  that  our  industry  has  been  fostered ;  that  it  has  beea 
fed  and  cherished.  Look,  Baring  at  the  fifth  resolution 
in  particular.  See  the  man,  his  wife  and  one  child,  doomed 
to  remain  upon  the  same  spot,  and  compelled  to  live  upoa 
four  shillings  and  sixpence  a  week  the  whole  year  round,  or 
sentenced  to  starvation  as  a  punishment.  Of  these  eight 
fosterers  of  our  industry  ;  these  eight  cherishers  of  us  and 
cur  wives ;  these  eight  sucklers  of  our  children,  ^ve  were 
ministers  of  Christ ;  each,  we  believe,  with  more  than  one 
living,  if  not  with  more  than  two ;  and  one  of  the  other 
three  magistrates  is  your  own  brother  who  is  so  zealous  in  cir- 
culating amongst  us  that  Bible  which  tells  us  that  even  *'  the. 
ox  is  not  to  be  muzzled  as  he  treadeth  out  the  corn."  We  beg 
you  to  read  this  magisterial  order  with  attention,  and  to  re-^ 
member  that  it  was  most  rigorously  acted  on  until  last  yearm 

"  HAMPSHIRE  JUSTICE. 

^'  NfeW  REGULATION  OF  ALLOWANCE  TO  THE  POOR. 

**  At  a  meeting  of  the  magistrates  acting  in  and  for  the  division 
*'  of  Fawley,  in  the  county  of  Sowthampton,  at  their  peity  sessions,. 
*'  held  at  the  Grand  Jury  Chamber,  Winchester,  the  Slst  day  of 
V  August,  1822; 

"  Present — the  Rev.  Edmund  Poulter  (chairman),  the  Hon.  and 
^*  Rev.  Jugvstus  George  Legge^  Sir  Thomas  Barings  Bart.,  the 
*'  Rev.  IVm.  Hill  Newbolty  D.D.,  fV.  Nevill  and  George  Lovell^ 
**  Esqrs,  the  Rev.  F.  IV.  Sivanton,  and  the  Rev.  Robert  Ifrigkty 
*^  eight  of  his  Majesty's  Justices  of  the  Peace,  and  a  large  and 
*'  respectable  numbe?-  of  the  yeomanry  residing  within  the  divisiou,. 
f  *  who  were  requested  by  the  magistrates  to  attend  on  the  occasion  c 


1st  September,  1831.  55 


**  The  magistrates,  having  taken  into  their  consideration  the 
*'  allowances  usually  made  by  this  bench  to  paupers  applying  for 
•*  relief,  and  the  diminished  price  of  every  article  of  life, 

*'  1.  Resolved  unanimously.  That  in  future  the  magistrates  act- 
*'  ing  at  this  bench,  in  making  their  orders,  either  collectively  or 
*'  individually,  for  the  maintenance  and  relief  of  such  paupers, 
*'  will  not  exceed  the  following  allowances  : — 

**  2.  When  the  family  shall  consist  of  a  man  and  his  wife,  with 
^'  one  or  two  children,  or  a  man  with  two  or  three  children,  or  a 
**  woman  with  two  or  three  children,  to  each  of  them  the  price  of    ^ 
*'  a  gallon  loaf,  of  the  best  wheateu  bread,  and  4d,  each  over  per 
^*  week. 

**  3.  When  the  family  shall  consist  of  a  man  and  his  wife,  with 
*'  three  or  four  children,  or  a  man  with  four  or  five  children,  or  a 
**  woman  with  four  or  five  children,  to  each  of  them  the  price  of  a 
**  gallon  loaf,  of  the  best  wheaten  bread,  and  3c?.  each  per  week 
**  over. 

**  4.  When  the  family  shall  consist  of  a  man  and  his  wife  with 
'*  five  or  more  children,  or  a  man  with  six  or  more  children,  or  a 
**  woman  with  six  or  more  children,  to  each  of  them  the  price  of  a 
**  gallon  loaf  of  the  best  wheaten  bread,  and  2d.  each  over  per  week. 
**  5.  And  whereas  a  practice  has  been  prevalent  among  the 
**  labouring  classes,  to  absent  themselves  during  a  part  of  the  year 
'^  when  their  services  are  most  required,  and  to  return  after  the 
"  harvest  and  become  a  burden  to  their  respective  parishes,  the 
•*  justices  recommend  to  the  ofl&cers  of  every  parish,  when  the 
**  family  shall  consist  of  a  man  and  his  wife,  or  a  man  with  one 
*'  child,  to  offer  to  each  such  man  4^.  per  week,  from  Michaelnias 
**  to  Lady-day,  and  5^.  per  week  from  Lady-day  to  Michaelmas, 
"  so  that  he  might  be  engaged  to  serve  the  whole  year ;  and  any  man 
**  refusing  that  offer  shall  not  be  entitled  to  any  relief.  If  no  such 
*'  offer  be  made,  or  no  sufficient  employment  can  be  found  where* 
'*  by  any  such  man  can  maintain  himself  and  his  wife  or  child,  the 
^^  allowance  is  to  be  35.  6d,  per  week  and  no  more. 

**  6.  To  every  unmarried  man  the  justices  recommend  the  ofH- 
^*  cers  of  every  parish  to  offer  3s.  per  week  from  Michaelmas-day 
*^  to  Lady-day,  and  4s.  per  week  from  Lady-day  to  Michaelmas^- 
**  day,  so  that  he  may  be  engaged  to  serve  the  whole  year;  and 
*'  any  unmarried  man  refusing  that  offer  shall  not  be  entitled  to 
**  any  relief.     If  no  such  offer  be  made,  or  no  sufficient  employ- 
**  ment  can  be  found  whereby  any  such  unmarried  man  can  main* 
**  tain  himself,  he  shall  be  paid  2s.  6d.  per  week,  and  no  more. 
**  7.  To  a  woman  with  one  child,  3.9.  6d.  per  week,  and  no  more, 
**  8.  To  every  single  woman,  2^.  fJ^.  per  week,  and  no  more. 
**  9.  And  the  justices  do  declare,  that  all  paupers   maintained 
**  and  relieved  by  their  parishes,  and  able  to  work,  shall  for  the 
*'  allowances  so  to  be  made  to  them,  be  compelled  to  perform  such 
**  proper  work  as  the  parish-officers  shall  direct  or  require  of  thera. 
**  And  it  is  earnestly  recommended  to  the  parish-officers  to  pro- 
**  vide,  as  far  as  possible,  employment  for  all  such  paupers,  and  if 
**  they  neglect  or  refuse  to  perform  the  work  found  for  them,  they 
^'  will  be  punished  as  the  law  directs,  **  T.  Woodham, 

"  Clerk  to  the  Magistrates. 


66  Two-penny  Trash; 

*'  Ordered   that  the   foregoinc^  resolutions  he  inserted  in  the 
**  Hampshire  county  newspaper.** 

This  was  not  t}'ing  up  one  hand,  Baring  ;  it  is  sewing 
up  tlie  mouth ;  and  yet,  when  we  stepped  forward  to  de- 
mand better  treatment  than  this,  the  bloody  Times  news- 
paper of  London,  which  is  the  property  of  two  women,  one 
called  Anna  Brodie,  and  the  other  F^nny  Wraight, 
called  aloud  for  SPECIAL  COMMISSIONS,  and  for  the 
putting  of  some  of  us  to  death,  at  least !  Of  the  proceed- 
ings of  that  special  commission,  of  Cooper,  of  Cook,  of 
the  two  Masons  who  were  taken  from  their  widowed 
mother,  of  Joseph  Carter  who  was  taken  from  his  wife 
and  eight  children  5  of  many,  many  others,  we  may  speak 
to  you  hereafter;  but  here,  Bap^-ING,  is  the  way  in  which 
our  industry  has  been  cherished,  in  which  our  hard  toil  has 
been  requited,  in  a  country  made  fruitful  by  our  hands  ;  by 
our  two  hands,  and  by  every  joint  and  nerve  in  our  bodies  * 
while  swarm  upon  swarm  of  idlers  have  been,  and  still  are, 
rioting  in  luxury  on  the  taxes  raised  upon  us.  You  are 
afraid,  it  seems,  that  some  degree  of  power  should  be  put 
into  our  hands  ;  you  are  afraid  that  our  industry  should 
cease  to  be  fostered  if  the  Reform  Bill  be  adopted,  and  if 
people  even  in  the  middle  rank  of  life  have  the  choosing  of 
members.  Such  fostering  as  we  have  above  described  will 
in  all  human  probability  cease  to  exist ;  but,  so  far  from 
that  being  an  evil,  we  shall  deem  it  a  great  good ;  and,  be 
you  assured,  that  the  very  reasons  which  make  you  object 
to  the  Reform  Bill  make  us  most  anxious  to  see  it  pass. 

Not  only  are  we  compelled  to  pay  taxes  on  our  malt,  hops, 
beer  (for  we  pay  a  tax  on  it  still),  tea,  soap,  candles,  sugar, 
tobacco,  and  on  every-thing  that  we  swallow,  or  that  we 
wear ;  not  only  are  we  compelled  to  pay  taxes  to  provide 
pensions  for  life  for  all  men  that  have  ever  been  in  public 
employ,  but  we  are  compelled  to  pay  taxes  also  to  the 
widows  of  such  men  for  their  lives,  and  to  their  children 
also  until  they  he  grown  up.  While  we  are  ground  down 
to  the  earth,  we  are  compelled  to  pay  taxes  to  breed  up 
swarms  of  gentlemen  and  ladies,  who  are  to  breed  more  in 
their  turn,  to  be  kept  out  of  the  fruit  of  the  sweat  of  our 
children.  There  is  no  provision  for  our  widows;  no  pen-' 
sions  for  them,  or  for  our  children ;  they  are  left  to 
Spurges  Bourne's  bills,  select  vestries,  and  hired  over- 
seers.    But,  relating  to  these  pensions  for  widows  and  chil- 


1st  September,  1831.  57 

dren  there  is  something  curious,  which  we  cannot  help 
noticing.  The  widows  of  officers  in  the  army  are  pensioned  ,• 
and  also  their  children ;  but  there  are  no  pensions  for  the 
widows  and  children  of  the  common  soldiers  !  The  com- 
mon soldiers  come  from  the  peasantry,  the  population,  the 
lower  orders,  and,  therefore,  there  are  no  pensions  for  their 
widows  and  children  ;  and  thus  it  is,  Baring,  that  our  in- 
dustry has  been  cherished  by  this  **  fabric"  which  you  are 
so  much  afraid  of  seeing  destroyed  ! 

In  short.  Baring,  we  have,  at  last,  got  behind  the  cur^ 
tain;  we  understand  clearly  how  it  is,  that,  amidst  all  the 
abundance  produced  by  our  labour,  we  are  reduced  to  a  state 
of  beggary  ;  we  see  clearly  how  it  is,  that,  in  the  land  of 
roast  beef  our  best  living  has  been  that  of  potatoes,  which 
our  forefathers  would  have  despised,  even  as  fatting  for  a 
hog.     We  know  that  the  Tithes  were  established  for  the 
use  of  the  poor ;  we  know  that,ybr  nine  hundred  years, 
England  knew  nothing  of  church  rates  or  poor  rates,  and 
that  the  churches  were  maintained  and  the  poor  relieved 
out  of  the  tithes  ;  we  know  that,  agreeably  to  the  law  as 
it  now  stands,  all  the  tithes,  all  the  estates  of  the  bishops, 
and  deans,  and  chapters,  all  the  estates  of  the  colleges,  be- 
long to  the  public  and  to  the  poor,  and  can  be  rightfully 
disposed  of  in  any  manner  that  the  representatives  of  the 
people  shall   please ;    and   as  we  firmly  believe    that   the 
Reform  Bill  will  give  the  people  wise  and  just  represen- 
tatives, we  look  to  that  with  great  hope  and  satisfaction, 
as  something  which   will   let  loose  the  hand   which   you 
seem  to  think  so  necessary  to  be  tied  behind  us.     For  the 
present,  Baring,  we  bid  you  farewell,  requesting  you  to  be 
contented  with  what  you  have  got ;  and  we  assure  you, 
that  when  we  get  plenty  of  bread,  bacon  and  beer,  and  good 
clothing  and  good  lodging  and  good  fuel,  in  exchange  for 
our  hard  labour,  we  shall  not  grudge  you  that  which  you 
possess ;  but  that,  until  we  get  them,  no  content  will  ever 
exist  amongst 

THE  LABOURERS 

OF    THE    LITTLE    HARD    PARISHES. 

P.S. — Our  next  letter  shall  be  addressed  to  your  brother 
Thomas. 


D  5 


SP^.  Two. PENNY  Trash; 

THE  BARINGS  AND  MR.  AND  MRS.  DEACLE. 

TO  THE  LABOURERS  OF  THE  HARD  PARISHES. 

KensingtoUy  26th  y^ugust,  1821. 
My  Friends, 

In  the  House  of  GommonSf  on  the  22d  instant,  the  fol- 
lowing proceeding  took  place.  I  will  make  no  remark  upon 
it,  but  just  request  you  to  read  the  whole  of  it  with  great 
attention,  particularly  the  petition  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle. 
The  petition  was  sent  from  Marwell,  as  you  will  see,  on 
the  19th  of  July,  and  was  not  presented  to  the  House  until 
the  22d  of  August,  so  that  the  Barings  and  Wilde  had 
plenty  of  time  to  be  prepared  for  their  defence.  What  is 
farther  to  be  done  I  do  not  yet  know ;  but  that  something 
will  be  done  is  certain.  I  request  you  to  read  the  whole 
with  particular  attention,  and  I  remain  your  faithful  friend, 

Wm.  COBBETT. 

**  Mr.  Evans  presented  a  petition  from  Thomas  and  Caroline 
*^  Deacle,  the  persons  who  lately  prosecuted  Mr.  Bingham  Baring 
*'  and  other  magistrates  of  Hamphire,  for  assault  and  false  im- 
*'  prisonment.  In  doing  so  he  reminded  the  House  that  he  had, 
**  on  a  former  occasion,  made  a  motion  for  the  production  of  certaia 
**  documents  which  bore  upon  the  case  of  the  petitioners,  and  had 
"  then  stated  he  was  not  actuated  by  any  personal  feelings;  that 
*'  he  had  no  knowledge  of,  and  had  abstained  from  all  communica" 
**  tion  with,  the  petitioners,  lest  he  might  be  led  into  making  an  ex 
^*  parte  statement,  and  that  he  founded  his  motion  altogether  upon 
**  two  documents  which  had  appeared  in  the  public  journals — one. 
**  purporting  to  be  a  report  of  the  trial  in  which  a  verdict  was 
*'  given  against  Mr.  Bingham  Baring,  and  the  other  a  letter  from 
*'  that  gentleman,  addressed  to  a  newspaper.  Judging  from  these 
*'  documents,  he  had  concluded  that  the  character  alike  of  the 
*'  gentlemen  accused,  as  of  the  magistracy  in  general,  was  con- 
**  cerned  in  this  matter  ;  and  therefore  was  it  he  had  moved  for  the 
*'  papers,  intending,  if  he  had  obtained  them,  to  ground  thereon 
**  a  motion  for  the  dismissal  of  Mr.  Baring,  and  the  other  magis- 
**  trates  concerned,  from  the  commission  of  the  peace;  He  had 
**  been  met,  however,  in  a  manner  for  which  he  was  altogether 
**  unprepared;  the  papers  were  refused;  and  although  he  had 
*'  cautiously  refrained  from  any- thing  which  might  wear  the  ap- 
*^  pearance  of  an  ex  parte  statement,  honourable  gentlemen,  in 
*^  speaking  in  reply,  had  pursued  a  course  directly  contrary,  and 
**  even  used  parts  of  these  documents,  the  whole  of  which  were 
*'  refused,  and  used  such  parts  as  tended  to  criminate  Mr.  and 
*'  Mrs.  Deacle.  He  (Mr.  Evans)  had  accordingly  been,  although 
*'  unintentionally,  the  cause  of  doing  an  injury  to  the  petitiotters  ; 
**  and  therefore  was  it  he  came  forward,  on  the  present  occasion, 
**  to  lay  before  the  House  a  petition,  in  which  they  solemnly  denied 
?'  the  truth  of  the  allegations  which  had  been  made  against  them. 


1st  September,  1831.  69 

^^  In  answer  to  the  statement  made  in  that  House  to  the  effect, 
*'  that  the  five  Magistrates  had  been  included  by  Mr.  Deacle  in 
'*  the  indictment  with  the  view  of  preventing  Mr.  Baring  of  avail- 
*^  ing  himself  of  the  evidence  of  persons  present,  he  begged  to  re- 
^*  mark  that  there  were  eleven  persons  present,  five  of  whom  only 
*^  were  included  in  the  indictment.  In  addition  to  the  magistrates, 
*^  there  were  Mr.  Jarvis,  the  servants,  and  the  three  constables  ; 
*^  and  this,  he  contended,  removed  all  grounds  for  suspicion  that 
*^  Deaclfr  had,  as  was  observed,  thrown  all  the  parties  into  one 
*^  net.  He  also  argued  that  evidence  to  character  should  not  be 
^*  considered  sufficiently  strong  to  overturn  facts  proved  at  the  trial. 
**  The  hon.  Member  also  declared  that  he  had  been  quite  astounded 
**  by  the  speech  of  the  hon.  and  learned  Serjeant,  the  Member  for 
**  Newark,  who  seemed  to  take  the  guilt  of  the  Deacles  for  granted, 
*^  and  who  actually  appeared  to  associate  Deacle  with  a  man 
*^  named  Boyce,  who  was  afterwards  transported,  and  to  consider 
**  that  he  had  appeared  in  company  with  this  person  at  the  head 
*'  of  a  mob  at  the  house  of  Mrs.  Long,  to  compel  her  to  reduce 
*'  rent,  and  to  contribute  a  sum  of  money,  which  it  was  stated  she 
*^  did  to  the  amount  of  fifteen  pounds.  He  (Mr.  Evans)  had  since, 
**  however,  had  a  conversation  with  the  hon.  and  learned  Member, 
*^  and  he  had  declared  to  him  that  he  had  no  notion  of  implicating 
**  Mr.  Deacle  with  those  proceedings.  It  appeared,  therefore,  that 
*'  he  and  other  honourable  Members  had  been  mistaken  in  the  ob- 
**  ject  and  meaning  of  the  hon.  and  learned  Member's  speech, 
**  The  hon.  Gentleman  then  proceeded  to  state  the  various  circum- 
**  stances  which  had  taken  place  on  the  two  trials,  giving  the 
^*  newspaper  reports  as  his  authority  throughout ;  he  next  stated, 
**  that  the  petitioners  complained  that  the  letters  sent  to  the  peti- 
*^  tioners,  when  in  jail,  had  been  destroyed,  in  one  of  which  letters 
**  there  was  an  offer  of  legal  assistance.  The  petition  likewise 
**  asserted  that  a  man  named  Collins  had  allowed,  that  if  he  had 
**  not  promised  to  give  evidence  against  Deacle  he  would  have  been 
**  prosecuted  himself;  and  that  another,  named  Barnes,  was 
**  taken  out  of  the  dock,  and  told  he  would  not  be  prosecuted  if 
*^  he  gave  evidence  against  Deacle.  The  petitioners  also  declared, 
*^  that  the  allegations  published  in  the  newspapers,  and  professing 
*^  to  be  a  report  of  the  speeches  made  by  an  hon.  and  learned  Ser- 
*^  jeant  and  other  honourable  Members  in  that  House,  were  false 
*^  in  matter  as  well  as  in  expression,  and  that  the  petitioners  were 
^*  ready  to  prove  the  truth  of  this  denial  by  evidence  at  the  bar 
**  of  the  House. 

"  Mr.  Speaker  here  called  the  hon.  Member  to  order,  and  re- 
**  marked  to  him,  that  this  petition  did  in  fact  comment  onproceed* 
*'  ings  in  that  Hoitse,  and  denied  as  false  and  malicious  allegations, 
*^  which,  upon  the  faith  of  the  public  channels  of  information,  the 
*'  petitioners  took  for  granted  had  been  made  in  that  House,  and 
**  which  they  considered  defamatory  of  their  character.  Under  these 
•*  circumstances,  he  did  not  conceive  the  House  could  receive  the 
**  petition  ;  and  he  considered  that  the  hon.  Member  was  pursuing 
*'  a  line  of  argument  which  could  only  end  in  one  of  two  things — 
**  in  the  House's  rejecting  the  petition,  or  else  establishing  a  new 
**  precedent  by  receiving  it* 


60  Two-penny  Trash; 


(C 


*'  Mr.  O'CoNNELL  had  read  the  petition,  aod  thought  that  Mr. 

Speaker  would  find  that  it  did  not  actually  comment  upon  the 
'*  proceedings  of  thut  House.  Besides,  there  were  facts  stated  iu 
**  it  well  worthy  of  attention. 

**  The  Speaker  then  suggested  that  the  petition  should  be 
**  brought  up  and  read  at  length.  The  House  would  be  then  able  to 
**  judge  if  he  were  correct  in  the  opinion  he  had  formed  respect- 
*'  ing  it. 

**  Mr.  Hume  had  read  the  petition,  and  thought  it  was  free  from 
"  the  technical  objection. 

**  Mr.  F.  Baring  wished  to  have  the  petition  laid  upon  the  Table. 

*'  Mr.  Evans  said  that  the  petitioners  expressly  declared  in  their 
*^  petition  that  they  did  not  j>resume  that  the  hon.  Members  al- 
**  luded  to  had  actually  used  such  language  as  was  attributed  to 
*^  them  in  the  public  prints.  He  then  t  ok  occasion  to  laud  the 
*'  impartial  conduct  of  the  press  in  this  case;  where,  if  there  were 
*'  any  bias,  it  would,  he  said,  have  most  probably  been  in  favour  of 
*^  Mr.  Baring;  and  he  observed,  that  much  as  he  honoured  the  wis- 
*'  dom  of  bolhHouses  of  Parliament,  he  considered  that  the  influence 
•*  of  the  press  was  of  the  highest  value,  or  something  to  that  effect. 

*'  The  petition  was  then  brought  up,  and  ordered  to  be  read  by 
**  the  clerk.     It  was  as  follows  : — 

*^  To  the  Honourable    the    Commons   of  the  United  Kingdom   of 
'•'  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  in  Parliament  assembled — 

**  The  humble  Petition  of  Thomas  and  Caroline  Deacle,  of  Marwell 
*<  Farm,  in  the  Parish  of  Otvselburt/ ,  in  the  County  of  Hants y 

1.  **  Showeth — That  your  petitioners  have  read  with  inexpress- 
*'  ible  indignation,  in  the  public  newspapers,  numerous  allega- 
**  tions  made  against  them  which  are  wholly  false,  scandalous,  and 
*'  malicious,  calculated  to  blast  their  characters,  to  injure  their 
*'  pursuits  in  life,  and  utterly  TO  destroy  their  peace  of  mind. 

2.  **That  amongst  these  false  and  scandalous  allegations,  Mr. 
**  Francis  Baring  is  represented  as  having  described  your  petitioner, 
**  Thomas  Deacle,  as  one  who,  during  the  late  disturbances  in  this 
**  county,  incited  men  to  machine-breaking,  encouraged  them  to 
*'  demand  a  reduction  of  tithes,  and  accompanied  them  illegally 
"  to  demand  money  ;  and  was  with  them  when  they  received  money 
'*  thus  extorted  ;  that  your  petitioner,  Caruline  Deacle,  was  a  per- 
'•  son  who  employed  the  influence  of  her  sex,  and  the  power  of 
*'  her  station,  to  ruin  the  poor  and  ignorant  who  lived  in  her  neigh- 
*^  bourhood,  and  that  she  was  present  with  a  mob  when  they 
**  demanded,  extorted,  and  received  money. 

3.  "That,  amongst  these  false  and  scandalous  allegations,  Mr. 
**  Thomas  VViid,  Serjeant-at-law,  is  represented  as  having  said, 
*^  *  1  n  one  case  the  mob  went  to  the  house  of  a  Mrs.  Long,  headed  by 
"  '  Deacle  and  Boyce,  and  having  compelled  her  to  sign  a  paper 
**  *  for  the  reduction  of  rent,  they  afterwards  demanded  money. 
*^  *  Fifteen  pounds  were  at  first  demanded,  but  they  afterwards 
**  *  consented  to  take  five  pounds  ;  and  after  having  spent  the  day  in 
**  '  making  collections  of  this  kind,  they  adjourned  to  the  Downs, 
*'  *  when  Mr.  Deacle  and  Mrs.  Deacle,  who  were  with  '^them,  su« 
•'  '  perintended  the  distribution  of  the  money.* 


1st  September,  1831.  61 

4.  '*That  your  petitioners  most  solemnly  declare  to  your  ho- 
*'  nourable  House,  that  every-thing  expressed  in  the  words  above 
**  recited,  is  utterly  destitute  of  truth  ;  that  it  is  false  in  matter 
*'  as  well  as  in  expression;  that  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  g^round 
**  for  either  of  the  above  allegations  ;  and  that  your  petitioners,  if 
*'  your  hon.  House  should  think  proper  to  permit  them  so  to  do, 
**  will  clearly  prove,  at  the  bar  of  your  hon.  House,  the  perfect 
**  truth  of  the  denial  which  they  here  give  to  those  allegations. 

5.  **That  your  honourable  House  ought  to  be  informed,  that 
**  an  indictment  was,  just  at  the  close  of  the  session  of  the  Special 
*'  Commission,  preferred  against  your  petitioner  Thomas  Deacle, 
**  but  not  against  your  other  petitioner  Caroline  Deacle  ;  that  a 
**  true  bill  was  found,  but  that  the  commission  was  suffered  to  ex- 
**  pire  without  bringing  your  petitioner  to  trial ;  that  the  indict- 
**  ment  was  brought  on  for  trial  at  the  last  Lent  Assizes  at  Win- 
**  Chester  :  that  the  prosecutors  produced  the  whole  of  their 
**  evidence  ;  that  one  of  their  witnesses,  of  the  name  of  Collins, 
*^  on  his  cross-examination,  acknowledged  that  he  would  not  say 
**  that  he  had  not  said  that  he  knew  nothing  against  Mr,  Deacle  ; 
•*  and,  upon  being  asked  whether  he  did  not  believe  that  he  would 
**  have  been  prosecuted  himself  if  he  had  not  promised  to  give  evi- 
**  dence  against  Mr.  Deacle,  he  said  he  believed  he  should  have 
**  heen  prosecuted  if  he  had  not  made  such  promise ;  that  another  of 
*'  the  witnesses  for  the  prosecution,  of  the  name  of  Barnes,  a  car- 
*'  penter,  upon  his  cross-examination,  stated,  that  during  the 
*'  trials  under  the  Special  Commission,  he  being  in  the  docky  and 
**  about  to  be  put  on  his  trial,  the  jailer ,  Becket,  called  him  out,  and 
*'  took  him  into  a  room  where  there  were  ff^alter  Long  a  magistrate, 
**  and  another  person,  whom  he  believed  to  be  Bingham  Baring, 
*'  vjho  told  him  that  he  should  not  be  put  upon  his  trial  if  he  would 
**  come  and  swear  against  Deacle;  that  another  person  of  the  name 
**  of  Prickett  was  called  as  a  witness  by  the  prosecutors,  and  that 
**  when  the  Counsel  for  the  defence  rose  to  cross-examine  this  wit- 
**  ness,  the  Counsel  for  the  prosecution  interfered  and  said  that  they 
*'  meant  there  to  stop  theprosecut'wiifor  want  of  sufficient  evidence^ 
**  that  the  Counsel  for  the  defence  persisted  in  a  wish  to  go  on, 
**  in  order  that  the  witnesses  of  his  client  might  be  produced, 
'*  but  that  the  Judge  interposed  his  authority,  observing  that  the 
**  defendant  was  honourably  acquitted,  and  could  want  nothing 
*^  more;  that  upon  this  part  of  the  subject  your  petitioners  beg 
^'  leave  to  point  out  to  the  attention  of  your  honourable  House,  that 
**  Charles  Seagrim,  the  attorney  of  Francis  and  Bingham  Baring, 
*'  was  the  attorney  employed  in  the  carrying  on  of  this  prosecution, 
*'  and  that  the  said  Seagrim  was  a  co-defendant  in  the  actioii 
**  which  your  petitioners  lately  brought  against  the  said  Barings 
**  and  others. 

6.  **  That  the  allegations  complained  of  are,  by  the  newspapers, 
**  represented  as  parts  of  speeches  delivered  in  your  honourable 
^'  House;  but  your  petitioners  having  been  informed  that  your  ho- 
**  nourable  House  will  not  receive  any  petition  which  comments 
**  on  speeches  made  in  your  honourable  House,  do  not  presume  to 
**  say  that  the  hon.  Members  named  in  this  petition  did  actually 
•*  utter  the  words  which  have,  by  the  newspapers,  been  attributed 


62  Two-penny  Trash  j 

**  to  them ;  but  they  complain  of  the  grievous  hardships  and  in- 
**  jurious  consequences  which  have  already  resulted,  and  which 
*'  cannot  fail  continually  to  result,  from  such  calumnies  being  pro* 
*'  pagated,  as  coming  from  Members  of  your  honourable  House 
*'  in  their  legislative  capacities;  and  the  more  so,  since  it  is  impos- 
^'  sible  for  them  to  escape  these  terrible  consequences,  without 
*'  the  interference  of  your  honourable  House,  in  such  way  as  to 
*^  your  honourable  House  shall  seem  meet. 

7.  *'  That  with  regard  to  the  words  imputed  to  Mr.  Serjeant 
*'  Wilde,  they  feel  themselves  doubly  aggrieved,  as  the  said  Ser-> 
**  jeant  was  retained  by  your  petitioner  Thomas  Deacle,  in  the 
**  action  lately  tried  at  Winchester,  but  that  he  did  not  arrive  at 
"Winchester  till  after  the  trial;  yet  he  is  notwithstanding  re- 
*«  presented  as  making  a  speech  tending  to  the  destruction  of  your 
**  petitioner,  while  he  had  your  petitioner's  money  in  his  pocket  as^ 
**  his  advocate. 

8.  "  That  your  petitioners  deeply  lament  the  necessity  which 
**  they  feel  themselves  under,  of  thus  trespassing  on  the  time  of 
**  your  honourable  House ;  but  that  they  hope  your  honourable 
**  House  will  have  the  goodness  to  consider  the  extent  of  the  in- 
*^  jury  done  them,  as  aforementioned;  as  an  instance  of  which, 
^'  your  petitioner  Thomas  Deacle  informs  your  honourable  House, 
**  that  he  was  in  treaty  for  a  farm  belonging  to  his  Grace  the 
*^  Duke  of  Beaufort,  which  farm  he  was  very  desirous  to  rent, 
**  while  the  steward  expressed  an  equal  desire  to  have  him  for  a 
*^  tenant;  but  that,  iu  consequence  of  the  allegations  made 
*'  against  your  petitioner,  as  aforesaid,  the  steward  has  announced 
*^  to  your  petitioner  that  the  Duke  of  Beaufort  refuses  to  receive 
**  him  as  a  tenant. 

9.  *'  That  your  honourable  House  must  be  convinced  that  no 
*'  individual  fortune  in  the  middle  rank  of  life  can  possibly  with- 
*'  stand  the  assaults  made  against  reputation,  as  aforementioned; 
*'  that  your  honourable  House  will  at  once  perceive  that  no  cha- 
*'  racter  can  stand  against  attacks  spread  in  this  manner  all  over 
**  the  kingdom,  and  coming  forth,  as  in  this  case,  under  the 
**  pretended  sanction  of  your  honourable  House. 

10.  **  That  therefore  your  petitioners  beseech  your  honourable 
**  House  compassionately  to  lend  an  ear  to  a  recital  of  the  treat- 
**  ment  which  they  have  experienced,  a  recital  which  they  will 
**  make  as  brief  as  possible,  omitting  unimportant  circumstances, 
**  but  pledging  themselves  to  prove,  on  the  oaths  of  witnesses  of 
*'  unquestionable  veracity,  the  truth  of  every  part  of  the  statement 
**  which  they  now  submit,  iu  the  hope  of  obtaining  justice  at  the 
**  hands  of  your  honourable  House. 

11.  **  Consoled  by  this  hope,  they  now  state.  That  on  the  24th  of 
<*  November,  1830,  at  about  two  o'clock  in  the  day,  William  Lew- 
^'  ington  and  John  Switzer,  constables  of  Winchester,  came  to  the 
*«  house  of  your  petitioners,  being  the  bearers  of  a  warrant  signed 
**  by  the  Rev.  Robert  Wright  and  one  or  two  other  magistrates 
<*  of  Hampshire,  and  served  it  on  your  petitioners,  who  imme- 
**  diately,  without  any  hesitation,  were  preparing  to  dress  them- 
**  selves  in  a  becoming  manner,  in  order  to  go  with  the  con- 
**  stables,  in  obedience  to  the  warrant,  that,  iu  about  five  minutes 


1st  September,  1831.  Si, 

*^  after  the  constables  entered  the  house,  they  were  followed  with 
"  great  apparent  violence,  and  with  great  rudeness,  by  Francis 
**  Baring  and  Bingham  Baring  (being  two  magistrates  of  the 
"county),  by  Robert  Wright  (clerk),  by  Mr.  Deane  (banker), 
"  of  Winchester,  and  by  oneSeagrim,  an  attorney  of  Winchester^ 
^^  who  is  the  partner  of  another  attorney  named  Woodham,  who 
**  are  the  attornies  of  Messrs.  Francis  and  Bingham  Baring;  that^ 
**  upon  these  parties  rushing  into  the  house,  Bingham  Baring 
''seeing  a  friend  of  your  petitioners,  of  the  name  of  Jarvis,  in 
**  an  outer  room,  who  was  changing  his  coat,  put  a  pistol  to  his. 
*^  head,  having  at  the  same  time  a  dagger  in  his  hand,  that  he  then 
*'  followed  the  rest  of  these  violent  intruders  into  the  inner  room,, 
**  or  parlour,  where  your  petitioners  were ;  that  then  Bingham 
**  Baring  came  up  to  your  petitioner  Thomas  Deacle,  and  struck 
*'  him  upon  the  shoulder,  and  then  seizing  him  by  the  arm,, 
**  exclaimed,  '  You  are  my  prisoner  !*  that  at  the  same  time,  or 
"  the  instant  afterwards,  Francis  Baring  also  seized  your  petitioner 
**  by  the  collar,  while  Robert  Wright  seized  hold  of  the  hinder 
"  part  of  his  coat;  that  thus  seized,  Bingham  Baring  having  hold 
**  of  an  arm,  Francis  Baring  of  the  collar  of  the  coat,  Robert 
«  Wright  of  the  hinder  part  of  the  coat,  Bingham  Baring  (inacom- 
**  manding  and  menacing  voice)  said  to  tlie  constable,  Mr.  Lew- 
**  ington  (Switzer  being  sent  into  the  yard  to  hold  the  horses), 
**  *  Do  your  duty  I'  and  Francis  Baring,  on  the  constable  seeming 
**  to  hesitate,  said,  *  Do  your  duty,  do  your  duty  !'  in  a  very  quick. 
**  and  stern  manner !  That  the  constable,  in  a  compassionate  tone 
**  while  putting  his  hand  into  his  coat  pocket,  answered,  *  There 
''  is  no  occasion  for  that,  Sir,  Mr.  Deacle  will  go  quietly;*  where- 
*'  upon  Bingham  Baring,  looking  sternly  at  the  constable,  said, 
**  *  Hand-bolt  them  !'  that  Lewington  put  the  hand-bolt  on  one  of 
**  your  petitioner's  (Thomas  Deacle's)  hands ;  that  while  he  was 
**  doing  this,  Francis  Baring  quitted  his  hold  of  your  petitioner's 
**  (Thomas  Deacle's)  collar,  went  to  another  part  of  the  room, 
**  seized  hold  of  your  petitioner's  (Caroline  Deacle's)  hand  and  arm, 
*' in  order  to  compel  her  to  submit  to  be  handbolted;  that  in 
*'  spite  of  the  supplications  of  your  petitioner  Thomas  Deacle,. 
**  who  represented  in  the  most  feeling  manner  the  delicate  and  pre- 
*'  carious  state  of  health  of  his  wife,  she  was  brought  up  by  Francis 
*'  Baring,  who  held  her  arm  until  her  wrist  was  fastened  in  tha 
<*  same  bolt  with  that  of  her  husband ;  that  Mr.  Lewington  had  been 
"  ordered  at  the  jail  to  bring  a  pair  of  small  hand-bolts  with 
*<  him,  and  that  he  had  them  in  his  pocket,  but  did  not  pull  them 
*'  out;  that  at  this  time  Bingham  Baring  went  into  the  outer  room 
**  for  the  purpose  of  disabling  the  fowling-pieces  which  were 
*' placed  in  the  corner  of  the  room;  that  your  petitioners  were 
«'  now  marched  off  from  the  inner  room  towards  the  outer  room, 
**  hand-cuffed  together,  Francis  Baring  still  holding  the  right 
*'  hand  and  arm  of  your  petitioner  Caroline  Deacle,  her  left 
<*  hand  being  in  the  bolt;  that  in  pulling  her  forward  through  the 
**  outer  room  into  the  court,  she  wishing  not  to  go  without  her 
**  bonnet  and  shawl,  he  pulled  her  with  such  force  as  to  pull  her 
**  hand  through  the  bolt,  except  that  it  was  held  by  the  fingers,  and 
**  by  apart  of  the  ruffle,  which  was  snapped  in  the  bolt,  and  there 


64  Two-penny  Trash; 

*'  fastened  ;    that  Francis  Baring,  seeing  your  petitioner  Caroline 
*'  Deacle  thus  loose,  put  his  arm  round  one  of  her  arms,  and  held 
**  her  two  hands    tog^ether   under   his  arm  wiih   s^reat   force    and 
*^  rudeness,  still  refusings  to    suffer  her   to  have  her  bonnet   and 
**  shawl;  and   in  tlie  meanwhile  Deane,   the  banker,  had  quitted 
**  the  house,  and  Seagrim  and  Wright  were  now  on   the  outside 
*' of  the   house,   on  horseback;    that  the  cart,  which   had   been 
**  guarded  all  the  while  by  Captain   Nevill,  was  stationed  on  the 
**  outside  of  the  yard,  about  100  yards  away  from  the  house  ;   that 
*'  Bingham  Baring  was  now  employed  in  knocking  the  caps  off 
*^  the  fowling-pieces,  and  pouring  beer  into  the  locks;  that  your 
*^  petitioner  Thomas  Deacle  was  now  taken  to  the  cart  by  Lew- 
*'  ington  and  Bingham  Baring,  which  latter  mounted  his  horse,  and 
**  rode  by  the  side  of  your  petitioner  Thomas  Deacle,  and  the  con- 
**  stable  ;  that  Francis  Baring,  refusing  to  wait  for  the  bonnet  and 
"  the  shawl,  proceeded  to  force  your  petitioner  Caroline   Deacle 
'*  from  the  house  and  the  court,  across  the  wet  and  dirty  yard,  in 
**  order  to  arrive  at  the  place  where  the  cart  was  stationed;  that; 
''  the  servants  ran  after  with  the  bonnet  and   a  cloak  and  clogs, 
*'  which  they  put  on   as  well  as  they  could,  he  not  suffering  your 
**  petitioner  to  use  her  hands  for  the  purpose;    that   he  then,  not 
**  however  till    her  feet  had   been   wet,  carried  her    across    the 
**  yard   for   a  certain    distance,    by   putting  his    arm    round  the 
**  middle  of  her  body,  her  head  foremost,  and  her  heels  hindmost^ 
**  and  her  person  in   a    horizontal   position,    and   this    notwith- 
*'  standing  her  earnest  entreaties  that  he  would  allow  her  to  go 
*'  through   the  garden,    where  the  way  was  not  only   clean,  but 
**  where  the  distance   was   much  shorter  to  the  cart ;  that  when 
*^  arrived  at  the  cart,  by  the   side  of  which   Captain  Nevill    was 
**  sitting  on  horseback,  the  Captain  ali;<hted,  and  got  into  the 
*' cart;   that  in  the  meanwhile  Francis  Baring  applied  his  hands 
**  and   arms  to  the  person  of  your  petitioner  Caroline  Deacle,  in 
*'  a  manner  so  rude,  indecent,  and  brutal,  as  not  to  be  described 
'*  by  her,  and  thus  lifted   her   up  upon   the    shaft  of  the  cart, 
*'  while  Captain  Nevill  seized  her  by  the   arm,  and  dragged  her 
*'  into  it ;  that  while  your  petitioner's  (Caroline  Deacle's)  person 
<*  was  handled  in   this  rude  and  indecent  manner,  the  extent  of 
<'  which  indecency  she  refrains  from  describing  to  your  honour- 
*'  able   House,   Seagrim    and  the  Rev.  Robert  Wright  were  sit- 
*'  ting  on  their  horses,  and  looking  on  and  laughing;  that  the  wheel 
*^  and  other  parts  of  the  cart  covered  her  habiliments  with  dirt,  and 
<*  tore  parts  of  them  ;  that  at  this  time,  and  even  in  the  court-yard, 
<'  your  petitioners  earnestly  implored  that  your  petitioner  Caro- 
«'  line  Deacle  might  be  permitted  to  ride  her  horse,  fearing,  from 
'*  the  state  of  her  health,  serious  injury  from   the  rude  joltings 
•*  of  the  cart;  that  this  request  was  positively  refused  by   Francis 
**  and  Bingham   Baring,  and  that  Seagrim  said,  *  No,  if  you  had 
*'  your  horse,  you  would  ride  as   you  did  yesterday'*  that  one  of 
**  the  constables    (Switzer)    said,    'For   God's  sake,  Sir,  let  the 
*'  <  lady  have  her  horse,  and  I  will  hold  the  reins,  and  will  forfeit 
**  *  my  life  if  I  lose  her;'  that  upon  this  Bingham  Baring  made 
*'  answer,  *  Do  your  duty,  Sir,   or  Til  report  you;*  that  the  cart 
«*  was  driven  by  Lewington,  and  that  the  horse  was  a  wretched 


1st  Septemser,  1831.  65 

"  pony;    that  Bingham   Baring   urged  Levrington   to  drive  faster, 

**  which  having  done  for  a  little  while,    he  said,   upon  a  second 

**  application,  *  The  lady  complains  of  being  ill,  and  says  that 

•*  the  jolting  hurts  her,*  whereupon  Bingham  Baring   again  ex- 

**  claimed,  *  Drive  on — make  your  way  to  Winchester  1*  that  Lew- 

*'  ingcon  still  not  driving  so  fast  as  Bingham  Baring  wished,  the 

*'  latter  came  up,  and  with  a  large  black  stick  which  he  carried, 

*' gave   repeated   blows    across   the  back  of  the  pony;    that  the 

'^  pony  now  went  considerably  faster,  causing   the  cart  to  jolt  so 

**  much,  that  }our  petitioner,  Caroline  Deacle,  felt  great  pain,  and 

**  rose  up,  by   bearing   upon    the   side  of   the  cart,  and  turning" 

*'  round   a  little,  said  to  Bingham   Baring,  *  Really,  Sir,  I  cannot 

*'  *  bear  this — it  will  be  the   death    of   me—I  shall    be  shaken  to 

•**  death;*   that  your  petitioner  Thomas   Deacle,  putting  out  his 

**  hand,  said,  *  Sit  still,  my  dear — bear  it  as  well  as  you  can,*  and 

**  that   hereupon   Bingham  Baring  struck  across  your  petitioner 

**  Caroline  Deacle  a  severe  blow  with  the  beforementioned   black 

**  stick,    which   fell    upon   the  arm   of   your    petitioner  Thomas 

*^  Deacle;  that  the  cart  was  accompanied  by  Francis  Baring,  Bing- 

"  ham  Baring,  Captain  Nevill,  the  Rev.  Robert  Wright,  Mr.  Deane 

*'  the  banker,  and  Seagrim   the  attorney,   as   a  troop  of  guards 

**  assisting  the  constables ;  that  when  the  carl  had  reached  about 

**  half    a  mile  from  the   house,   Mr.    Deane    went   off  to    Win- 

*'  Chester,  leaving  the  rest  to  attend  the  cart;  that  when  the  cart 

*«  arrived  at  the  top  of  Winchester  Hill,   about  two  miles  from  the 

**  city,  it  was  met  by  a  post-chaise,  into  which  your  petitioners  were 

•*  put,  in  compauy  with  the  jailer,  who  was  in   it,  and  were  thus 

**  conveyed  to  the  common  jail  at  Winchester;   that  when  arrived 

**  at  the  jail,  the  six  persons  before-mentioned  had  disappeared; 

**  that  the  jailer  hurried  your  petitioner  Thomas  Deacle  into  a 

**  room  where  certain  magistrates  were  assembled,  amongst  whom 

*'  were  Sir  Thomas  Baring,  as  he  believes,  and  the  Rev.  Robert 

«  Wright  the  elder ;  that  in  the  meanwhile  your  petitioner  Caro- 

*'  line  Deacle  was  put  into  another  room,  being  the  jailer's  kitchen, 

*'  but  afterwards  was  brought  into  the  same  room  ;  that  the  ma- 

*'  gistrates  deferred  any  examination  for  that  night,  on  the  alleged 

*'  account  of  want  of  witnesses,  and  refused  to  let  your  petition- 

*' ers  out  on  bail;  that  after  this,  the  jailer   Beckett   took  your 

•*  petitioners  into  the  passage  and  informed  them,  that  he  must 

**  take  your  petitioner  Thomas  Deacle  and  put  him  into  a  ward, 

*'  and  that  he  would  give  your  petitioner  Caroline  Deacle  a  bed 

*'  along  with  the  women ;   that  upon  hearing  this,  your  petitioner 

*^  Caroline  Deacle,  understanding  that  her  husband  was  going  to 

*'  be  locked  up  amongst  felons,  fell   into   a  violent  hysteric   fit, 

*^  and   was  falling   backward    upon   the   stone  floor,   which    was 

**  luckily  prevented  by  your   petitioner  Thomas  Deacle  catching^ 

**  her    in  his   arms ;  that  the  fit    was  very  strong,  and  rendered 

*'  it  necessary  to  open  her  clothes,  cut  the  lace  of  her  stays,  and 

**  thus  expose  her  in  the  presence  of  numerous  persons  of  various 

"  descriptions,  the  inmates  or  the  visitants  of  a  common  jail ;  that 

*'  after  this  your  petitioners  were  permitted,  at  the  expense  of  tea 

*'  shillings  a  day,  to  live  in  the  apartments  of  one  of  the  turnkeys, 

*'  situated  on  the  felons*  side  of  the  jail,  and  surrounded  by  felofts 


66  Two-penny  Trash; 

'^  on  every  side ;  that  in  this  situation  your  petitioners  remained 
"  from  the  evening  of  the  24th  of  November  until  the  evening  of 
"  the  27th  of  November ;  that  on  the  25th  of  November  your  peti- 
**  tioners  were  brought  before  the  Magistrates  sitting  in  the  jail,  and 
**  were  told    that  the  evidence    against   them    had   not  arrived; 
*'  that  on  the  morning  of  the  26th  of  November  they  were  brought 
*^  before  the  Magistrates  again,  always  guarded   by  the  jailer  or 
**  under-jailer,  as  if  they  had  been  felons,  and  were  now  told  that 
*'  the  evidence  was  in  their  favour,  but  that  as  all  the  ev*idence 
**  had  not  arrived  they  must  detain  them  longer:  that  in  the  after- 
*'  noon  of  the  same  day,  the  under-jailer  again  brought  them  into 
**  the  presence  of  the  Magistrates,  always  sitting  in  the  jail;  that 
**  the  Magistrates  there  told  your  petitioner  Thomas  Dearie,  that 
**  they  had  nothing  against  him,  and  that  he  might  go,  but  they 
**  must  detain  your  petitioner  Caroline  Deacle  until  the  next  day, 
**  when    they  expected  some  evidence   against    her;    that  upon 
**  this  your   petitioner  Thomas   Deacle   begged  to   be  permitted 
**ito   remain  with  his  wife,    to  which  the  Magistrates   answered, 
**  *  No  !' — that  thereupon  your  petitioner  Caroline  Deacle  fainted 
*^  away,  and   was  held   in   the  chair,  the   Magistrates,   with    Sir 
**  Thomas  Baring  at  their  head,  exclaiming,  *Take  her  away,  take 
**  her  away — she  must  not  remain  to  interrupt  our  business;'  that 
*'  in  consequence   of  this  she  was  carried  out  of  the  room  in  the 
**  chair,    and  your    petttioner    Thomas   Deacle    was    afterwards 
*^  permitted  by  the  jailer  to  remain  with  his  wife;  that  on  the  27th 
**  your  petitioner  Caroline  Deacle  was  brought  before  the  Magis- 
"  trates  by  the  under-jailer,  and  had  read  to  her  a  deposition  of 
**  Robert  VVright  the  younger,  one  of  the  defendants  in  the  late  ac- 
**  tion,  but  that  she  was  not  confronted  with  any  accuser,  nor  were 
*'  either  of  your    petitioners   ever    confronted  with  any    accuser 
**  from   the  first  to  the  last ;  that  finally  your  petitioners  were  re- 
**  leased  upon   bail   given  for  your   petitioner  Caroline   Deacle, 
*'  and  your  petitioner  Thomas  Deacle,  without  bail  in  the  first  in- 
*'  stance,  and  afterwards  with  bail,  when  new  pretended  evidence 
**  had   been   discovered;    that  in   the  meanwhile  your  petitioner 
"  Thomas  Deacle  had  declared  his  intention  of  bringing  an  actioa 
*'  against  the   Magistrates    for  assault   and  false    imprisonment ; 
**  that  after  this    the  indictment  before    mentioned    was  framed 
*'  against  him,  and  the  bill    found  as   before  stated,  just  at  the 
*'  close  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Special  Commission  which  pro- 
*'  duced   the  trial  at  the  Lent  Assizes,  ending  in  the  honourable 
•'  acquittal   of  your    petitioner ;  and  that,  during  [the  imprison- 
**  ment  of  your  petitioners,  the  letters  sent  to  them  were  destroyed 
*'  by  the  jailer,  in  one  of  which  was  an  offer  of  legal  assistance, 
12.    **  Your  petitioners  earnestly    pray  that  your  honourable 
**  House    will   be   pleased,  in  order  to  afford  them  a    chance  of 
*'  relief  from   the   most   direful    oppression,   to    permit,    if    com- 
**  patible  with  the  rules  of  your  honourable  House,   evidence  in 
<*  the  premises  to  be  brought  to  your  bar ;  in   which   case   they 
<*  solemnly  pledge  themselves  to  prove,  by  witnesses  other  than 
<*  themselves,  all  and  singular  the  allegations   contained  in  this 
«  their  humble  petition  ;   and  with  all  submission  to  the  superior 
"  judgment,  and  in  a  firm  reliance  on  the  justice,  of  your  honour* 


1st  September,  1831.  67 

**  able  House,  ttey  further  pray  that  you  will  be  pleased  to  adopt 
**  such  other  measures,  relative  to  the  premises,  as  la  your  wisdom 
«  you  shall  deem  to  he  most  meet. 

"  And  your  petitioners  will  ever  pray. 
"  (Signed)  «'  THOMAS  DEACLE, 

**  Marwell,  July  29.  «  CAROLINE  DEACLE.'* 

**  Colonel  Evans  moved  that  the  petition  do  lie  on  the  table. 

**  Mr.  F.  Baring  had  taken  the  opportunity  of  stating,  on  a  for- 
**  mer  occasion,  the  circumstances  of  this  case  ;  and  though  there 
*'  were  many  things  in  this  petition  that  might  seem  to  call  for  a 
**  further  statement,  yet,  considering  the  time  he  had  already 
"  taken  up  on  the  subject,  he  felt  a  delicacy  in  further  encroach- 
•*  ing  on  the  public  time  upon  the  present  occasion.  Still,  how- 
"  ever,  he  trusted  the  House  would  bear  with  him,  for  a  few  mo- 
**  ments,  while  he  noticed  one  or  two  of  the  particulars  stated  in 
*^  this  petition.  He  did  not  intend  now  to  repeat  the  statement  he 
**  had  formerly  made.  When  he  made  it,  he  did  so  partly  in  con- 
**  tradiction  of  the  allegations  that  had  been  advanced  respecting- 
**  his  cousins,  and  his  own  conduct,  on  the  occasion  referred  to, 
'^  and  partly  with  a  view  of  making  the  House  acquainted  with 
*'  circumstances  which  had  not  previously  appeared  before  the 
**  public.  PFith  regard  to  the  present  petition y  he  was  prepared  to 
**  meet  it  with  a  full  contradiction  He  had  already  made  his  state* 
♦'  ment  of  the  circumstances  to  the  House,  and  there  was  no  con* 
*^  tradiction  of  his  statement  cojitained  in  any  part  of  that  petition 
**  that  would  induce  him  to  withdraw  one  assertion  that  he  had  then 
^*  made.  The  statement  now  made  by  the  petitioners  was  contrary 
*^  to  all  those  put  forth  in  evidence  at  the  trialy  and  sworn  to  as  true 
**  there.  There  was  hardly  one  point  in  which  the  two  statements 
'*  concurred  with  each  other — there  was  but  one  in  which  he  and 
**  the  petitioners  agreed  together,  and  that  was  in  the  declaration 
^<  that  the  evidence  given  at  the  trial  was  a  false  account  of  the 
**  circumstances  that  had  taken  place*  It  was  said  at  first  that  Mrs. 
^*  Deacle  came  forward  in  the  room  and  gave  her  hand  to  be  hand- 
*'  cuffed  ;  it  was  now  said  that  he  (Mr.  Francis  Baring)  had  dragged 
*'  her  forward  to  be  handcuffed.  At  first  it  was  said  that  his  cousia 
**  had  shown  a  gun,  and  had  used  it  to  intimidate;  now  it  was 
**  stated  that  a  pistol  and  dagger  were  employed,  and  the  gun  was 
**  sunk  !  He  wished  that  the  two  statements  could  be  published 
**  parallel  by  parallel.  The  plaintiff*s  statement,  as  it  was  now 
*'  made,  and  as  it  was  then  made  by  his  witnesses,  did  not  at  all 
**  agree  together,  and  of  course  no  credit  whatever  was  to  be  given 
*^  to  eiihei\  There  was  one  point  to  which  he  wished  particularly 
**  to  call  the  attention  of  the  House.  It  was  this  : — It  was  origin- 
**  ally  stated  that  his  cousin  had  carried  Mrs.  Deacle  to  the  cart  i 
**  that  statement  had  then  been  denied  ;  and  he  (Mr.  F.  Baring) 
**  had  said  that  he  was  the  person  who  had  carried  her  to  the  cart. 
•*  It  now  turned  out,  even  on  the  petitioner's  own  statement,  that 
**  it;  was  not  Air.  Bingham  Baring,  but  he,  who  had  carried  the 
**  lady  to  the  cart.  When  he  had  ventured  to  state  that  in  the 
•*  House,  all  the  persons  who  took  a  diflferent  view  of  the  matter 
**  said  that  was  a  matter  which  could  not  be  mistaken.  Now  at 
"  the  time  that  the  witnesses  swore  Mr.  Bingham  Baring  carried 


68  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

*'  Mrs.  Deacle  to  the  cart,  Mr,  and  Mrs.  Deacle  were  both  in  Court: 
*'  they  had  the  means  of  knowing  whether  the  statement  was  true 
**  or  not,  yet  they  heard  it  made,  allowed  it  logo  to  the  Jury^  and  to 
*'  he  commented  upon  hy  tke  Judge,  and  never  once  pretended  to 
*'  express  even  a  doubt  of  the  correctness  of  the  statement  when 
**  the  charge  was  afterwards  brought  forward.  Mr.  B.  Baring  de- 
**  nied  the  fact—  his  attorney  wrote  a  letter  in  answer  to  the  charge, 
**  and  declared  the  statement  not  to  be  true ;  and  even  then  Mr- 
**  Deacle  did  not  admit  it  to  be  mistaken,  on  the  contrary,  he  re- 
**  asserted  the  fact,  it  was  now  found  that  the  charge,  as  against 
•'  Mr.  B.  BarinsT,  was  wholly  unfounded,  and  the  truth  of  the 
*'  statement  he  had  made  in  the  House  was  now  admitted,  yet  up 
*'  to  this  time  the  poison  had  been  allowed  to  circulate  iu  the 
**  country,  though  now  the  same^cliarge  was  laid  to  him.  The  at- 
**  tornies  who  had  conducted  the  cause  on  behalf  of  his  cousin, 
'*  were  the  Clerks  of  the  Peace  for  the  county,  who  had  in  that 
**  character  prosecuted  all  the  parties  at  the  suit  of  the  Crown. 
**  They  were  not  the  attornies  either  for  his  father  or  his  uncle,  and 
•*  they  had  only  been  employed  in  tliat  instance  at  the  recommenda- 
**  tion  of  the  attornies  for  the  family,  because  they  were  thought  to 
•*  know  all  the  facts  of  the  case.  He  had  felt  himself  bound  to  state  all 
*^  these  circumstances,  because  he  could  not  be  silent  when  these 
*'  acctisations  were  brought  against  his  cousin,  and  brought  against 
**  him  toOf  in  a  motion  to  strike  his  name  off  the  list  of  gentlemenin  the 
*'  Commission  of  the  Peace — a  motion  which  could  not  but  affect  his 
*^  character.  He  would  now  make  no  further  observations,  except  to 
*^  say,  with  reference  to  the  gallant  officer's  eulogy  on  the  public 
*'  press,  that  it  would  have  been  fairer  if  it  had  not  been  dragged  in 
**  as  the  gallant  officer  had  dragged  it  in  on  the  present  occasion.- 

**  Sir  T.  Baking  said,  that  as  his  name  had  been  introduced  in  a 
**  manner  not  very  creditable  to  him,  he  was  desirous  of  troubling 
**  the  House  with  a  few  words  upon  this  subject.  He  was  well 
**  aware  that  every  person  who  acted  in  a  public  capacity  in  that 
*'  House,  or  out  of  it,  was  liable  to  have  his  conduct  traduced,  and 
*'  his  character  calumniated  ;  and  for  himself,  he  could  only  ^•e- 
**  joice,  that  when  this  was  done  with  regard  to  him,  he  had  the 
•'  opportunity  Avhich  that  House  afforded  of  answering  the  ca- 
*'  lumny.  The  hou.  Member  who  had  introduced  this  petition  had 
^'  not  had  the  common  courtesy  to  give  him  the  slightest  notice  of 
*^  it — a  conduct  which  he  should  not  have  pursued  towards  the 
**  hon.  Member  under  similar  circumstances.  He  was  charged 
**  with  having  at  first  resolved  upon  committing  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dea- 
**  cle  to  prison.  That  charge  was  not  true.  It  was  said  that  Mrs. 
**  Deacle  had  fainted  in  the  chair,  and  that,  notwithstanding  her 
**  state,  he  had  ordered  her  away,  saying  that  the  Magistrates 
**  could  not  be  troubled  with  her,  or  some  expressions  to  that  effect.. 
**  He  utterlv  denied  having:  ever  said  so.  He  had  not,  to  the  best 
**  of  his  recollection,  heard  her  utter  a  single  word;  he  had  only 
**  come  into  the  room  accidentally  at  the  moment  when  Mr.  Dea« 
'*  cle  was  having  some  evidence  (he  believed  it  wa3  Deacle*sowu) 
'*  read  over  to  him.  At  that  moment  he  (Sir  T.  Baring)  saw  a  fe- 
**  male  in  a  chair,  but  he  did  not  hear  her  utter  one  word.  He 
**  looked  over  the  evidence  cursorily,  and  the  cruelty  of  which  he 

was  then  guilty,  was  to  suggest  to  his  brother  Magistrates  that 


(( 


1st  September,  1831.  69^ 

**  Mr.  Deacle  should  be  admitted  to  bail.  He  took  no  other  part 
'*  whatever  in  the  proceedings.  When  these  statements  were  thus 
**  found  to  be  unsupported  by  the  fact,  he  thought  that  the  House 
*'  would  not  feel  much  inclined  to  give  great  credit  to  other  state- 
*'  ments  in  the  same  petition.  At  the  time  that  these  persons  were 
**  brought  to  prison,  he  was  occupied  at  a  distance  of  eight  miles,. 
**  in  endeavouring  to  suppress  a  riot  occasioned  by  other  parties, 
**  and  to  take  those  parties  into  custody.  On  his  return  he  again. 
*'  read  over  the  evidence  in  Deacle's  case,  and  then,  upon  a  more 
*'  attentive  perusal  than  he  had  before  given  it,  he  found  the  evi- 
*'  deuce  stronger  than  he  had  before  supposed,  and  he  surrendered 
*^  his  own  opinion  to  that  of  the  other  Magistrates.  These  were 
**  the  facts  of  the  case  as  far  as  he  was  concerned. 
'  **  Mr.  F.  Baring  wished  to  be  permitted  to  say,  that  there  were 
*'  other  statements  in  the  petition  which  he  had  not  noticed,  but  he 
*^  hoped  he  should  not  be  taken  to  have  admitted  the  truth  of  them 
**  because  he  had  not  contradicted  them. 

**  Mr.  Serjeant  Wilde  said,  that  from  his  having  mistaken  the 
*^  order  of  the  proceedings  in  the  House,  he  had  not  been  present 
**  when  this  discussion  began.  He  begged  to  express  his  regret  at 
*^  that  circumstance.  It  seemed  that  he  had  been  made  a  subject 
'*  of  accusation  in  the  petition,  and  he  found  that  he  had  been  re- 
**  duced  to  that  situation  from  bis  having  discharged  what  heconsi- 
**  dered  to  be  his  imperative  duty  as  a  member  of  that  House.  The 
^^  petition,  so  far  as  it  referred  to  him,  was  not  exp'essed  in  those 
*^^  courteous  terms  that  might  be  expected;  but  he  looked  to  the  sub- 
*^  stance,  not  to  the  form  of  it.  He  wished  to  recal  the  attention  of 
*^  the  House  to  what  had  occurred  on  the  former  occasion.  He  had 
*^  not  then  expressed  any  opinion  of  what  had  taken  place;  for  he 
^^  had  not  been  present  at  the  trial  ;  he  had  not  gone  into  those 
'^  parts  with  which  he  was  not  personally  acquainted;  he  had 
*^  merely  stated  what  he  knew  from  the  depositions  that  had  been 
^^  laid  before  him.  He  was  accused  in  the  petition  of  having  made 
*'  certain  statements  in  that  House.  He  did  not  know  how  the  pe- 
**  titioners  became  acquainted  with  what  he  said  there  ;  for  he  had 
*'  looked  into  the  Tirnes^  and  he  did  not  find  that  he  had  been  re- 
*'  ported  to  the  effect  now  represented  in  the  petition.  The  report 
*^  was  substantially  correct,  indeed  much  more  correct  than  could 
**  under  all  circumstances  have  been  reasonably  anticipated.  He 
^'  denied  that  he  had  ever  sided  with  heartless  injustice  and  op- 
*^  pression,  as  the  petitioners  accused  him  of  doing.  What  he  said 
*^  had  been  founded  on  the  depositions  that  were  brought  to  his 
*^  notice  in  the  discharge  of  his  duty  in  assisting  the  King's  Attor- 
*^  ney*General  in  the  public  prosecutions.  Unfortunately,  on  ac- 
*^  count  of  the  absence  of  Mr.  Chambre  from  town,  he  had  not 
*^  been  able  to  bring  those  depositions  with  him.  He  now  came 
*^  to  speak  upon  a  matter  more  immediately  connected  with  his 
**  professional  practice  and  his  character  as  a  member  of  that 
**  House.  A  retainer  had  been  left  at  his  chambers  some  time  be- 
*'  fore  the  trial.  It  was  anticipated  that  he  could  not  be  able  to  at- 
*'  tend  at  the  Winchester  Assizes.  The  person  who  left  the  retainer 
*'  was  told  so.  He  thought  he  was  bound  before  every-thing  td 
<'^  discharge  his  duty  in  that  House.  A  letter  was  written  to  the 
5f  effect  he  had  stated,  hy  his  clerk*  That  retainer  gave  him  no  in- 


70  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

*'  formation  of  the  nature  of  Deacle's  case.    Honourable  members 

"  must  not  confound  a  retainer  with  a  brief.    A  retainer  only  con* 

**  tained  the  names  of  the  parties.     He  (Mr.  Serjeant  Wilde)  had 

**  never  seen  Deacle  or  his  attorney — he  had  no  communicatioQ 

"  -whatever  with  them — and  it  was  not  to  be  supposed  that  the 

•*  leaviug"  a  retainer  with  a  one  guinea  fee  was  to  prevent  a  mem» 

*'  ber  of  that  House  from  doing  his  duty  there.    If  any  persons  did 

**  suppose  that,  he  begged  that  they  would  keep  their  retainers  to 

"  themselves.    He  considered  that  his  duty  in  that  House  waspar- 

**  amount  to  all  others.  He  had  no  knowledge  whatever  of  the  case. 

**  Mr.  Hume  called  the  attention  of  the  House  to  the  fact,  that 

'*  the  depositions  against  the  Deacles,  on  which  the  learned  Serjeant 

**  had  so  much  relied^  were  disbelieved  by  the  Jury.     It  was  most 

**  unfair  that  any-body  should  judge  of  the  conduct  of  the  Deacles 

**  from  those  depositions,  and  without  any  knowledge  of  his  own, 

*'  whether  they  were  true  or  false.  He  (Mr.  Hume)  knew  nothing  of 

*'  the  petitioners  ;  but  knew  that  the  treatment  they  had  received  was 

*'  cruel  ajid  unjust.     One  ground  of  reasonable  complaint  on  their 

*'  part  was,  that  in  despair  of  establishing  any  other  charge,  they 

**  had  been   accused  of  a  conspiracy,  which  was  a  symptom  in  the 

"  inodern  administration  of  justice.     The  question  involved  in  this 

**  petition  was  one  of  great  importance,  not  merely  to  the  Deacles, 

**  but  to  the  public,  and  it  was  this — how  far  Magistrates  were  re- 

*'  sponsible  for  their  conduct  to  the  King's  subjects.     It  was  fit  that 

"  the  people  should  know  why  Mrs.  l3eacle  had  been  handcuffed 

**  like  a  common  felon.     It  was  quite  clear  that  the  petitioners  had 

*'  been  mistaken  regarding  the  person  of  the  hon.  Baronet  (Sir  T. 

**  Baring)  ;  but  he  (Mr.  Hume)  did  not  know  whether  the  hon. 

*'  Member  denied  that  he  had  ordered  that  Mrs.  Deacle  should  be 

*'  handcuffed.     If  he  had  not  done  so,  it  was  of  great  consequence  to 

**  ascertain  who  was  the  Magistrate   who  had  given  the  order.     He 

**  (Mr.  Hume)   put  it  to  the  House,  whether  it  was  not  a  point 

''  worth  deciding,  whether  power  should  be  continued  to  such  an  in" 

*^  dividual}     Simple   justice   required  that  the  petition  should  be 

*'  laid  upon  the  table;  and  that,  on  a  future  day,  it  should  be  refer- 

'*  red  to  a  Select  Committee.  If  the  magistrates  had  not  been  guilty 

*'  of  an  excess  of  power,  it  was  fit  that  the  fact  should  be  ascer- 

'*  tained,  in  order  that  all  imputation  might  be  removed. 

**  Mr.  C.  Fergusson  referred  to  the  denial  of  the  hon.  Member 
**  that  he  was  present  when  Mrs.  Deacle  was  handcuffed,  and  to  the 
**  oath  of  a  witness  to  that  effect.  He  also  urged  that  the  Jury 
**  would  probably  have  given  larger  damages  than  50Z.  if  they  had 
**  believed  the  asTgrravations  that  were  charged  in  the  declaration. 
*'  At  the  same  time  he,  too,  was  anxious  to  know  who  had  ordered 
•*  Mrs.  Deacle  to  be  handcuffed,  and  if  he  were  a  Member,  the 
**  House  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  his  association.  Both  she  and  her 
*'  husband  had  had  much  to  complain  of;  and  it  was  most  unjust 
*'  that  any  notion  should  go  forth  to  the  public  that  the  House 
*'  thought  either  of  them  guilty  of  what  had  been  disproved  on  the 
**  trial. 

"  On  the  question  being  put  that  the  petition  do  lie  on  the  table, 

**  Sir  George  Clerk  objected,  on  the  ground  that  the  petition, 

'*  in  substance  though  not  in  form,  complained  of  what  had  passed 

f  *  in  the  House  in  the  speeches  of  Members,    Jt  was  drawn  up  with 


1st  September,  1831.  '       71 

*'  great  skUl  to  avoid  the  standing  order  upon  the  subject^  but  he 
"  apprehended  tlie  House  would  not  allow  that  to  be  done  hy  eva- 
**  sion  which  could  not  be  done  directly. 

**  Lord  Althorp  said  that  he  had  seen  the  petition  yesterday, 
*'  and  that  it  undoubtedly  was  drawn  up  to  evade  the  ordei'  of  the 
**  House:  it  complained  of  what  had  been  contained  in  the  speeches 
*'  of  Members ;  but  as  the  House,  contrary  to  its  own  order,  al- 
**  lowed  the  publication  of  those  speeches,  it  seemed  hard  upon 
**  petitioners  to  refuse  them  the  opportunity  of  vindication  from 
*^  charges  contained  in  speeches.  On  all  accounts,  therefore,  he 
**  thought  the  House  ought  not  to  be  very  scrupulous  upon  the 
**  point,  and  for  one  he  should  not  object  to  the  laying  of  the  petition 
**  upon  the  table, 

•*  Mr.  EsTcouRT  said,  that  as  long  as  the  order  in  question  stood 
**  upon  the  Journals,  it  ought  to  be  enforced.  It  might  be  very 
**  proper  to  recall  it,  but  at  present  it  was  the  rule  by  which  the 
**  House  declared  it  would  be  guided.  'He  urged  another  objection 
**  to  the  petition,  viz.,  that  it  sought  redress  from  the  House  in  the 
**  first  instance,  whereas  the  Deacles  ought  to  have  come  to  it  only 
**  in  the  last  resort,  and  after  they  had  in  vain  tried  other  remedies 
**  that  were  open  to  them.  The  whole  appeared  to  him  a  very  dis- 
**  orderly  proceeding,  and  he  should,  therefore,  oppose  the  receiv- 
**  ing  of  the  petition. 

"  Mr.  O'CoNNELL  contended,  that  if  the  hon.  Member  were  for 
*^  enforcing  one  standing  order  against  petitioners,  he  ought  to  go 
*'  farther,  and  enforce  another  against  the  publication  of  debates. 
*^  (Hear.)  He  should  like  to  see  the  hon.  Member  move  that  the 
*^  proprietors  of  all  the  newspapers  in  the  United  Kingdom  should 
*'  be  brought  to  the  Bar,  for  infringing  the  order  that  the  speeches 
**  of^embers  should  not  be  published.  (Hear,  hear.)  If  those 
**  speeches  went  forth,  as  in  this  instance,  injury  might  be  done ;  and 
*'  when  injury  was  done,  it  was  mere  justice  to  allow  a  remedy,  Mr. 
**  and  Mrs.  Deacle  had  suffered  severely ;  but  the  appointment  of 
**  a  committee  to  inquire  into  the  facts  might  end  in  the  triumphant 
'*  acquittal  of  the  magistrates  accused  by  them. 

**  Sir  F.  BuRDETT  was  decidedly  in  favour  of  receiving  the  peti- 
**  tion,  relating  as  it  did  most  importantly  to  the  administration  of 
*'  public  justice.  The  power  under  which  the  Magistrates  had 
**  acted  in  this  instance  required  investigation,  and  he  was  strongly 
**  of  opinion  that  the  power  exercised  by  Magistrates  generally 
**  needed  great  vigilance.  The  petition  seemed  to  him  very  pro- 
*'  perly  drawn,  and  certain  it  was  that  the  parties  had  suffered 
'^  severely  both  in  purse  and  person.  It  would  indeed  be  an  ex- 
*'  traordinary  proceeding  if  a  petition  containing  such  allegations 
**  were  rejected,  and  all  inquiry  refused, 

*'  The  petition  was  then  laid  upon  the  table,  and  it  was  ordered 
*'  that  it  should  be  printed,'* 

COBBEIT^S  CORN. 

During  my  late  journey  in  Hampshire,  and  tbrough 
Surrey  and  back  tbrough  Berkshire,  I  had  great  pleasure  to 
see  many  very  fine  parcels  of  my  corn ;  and  I  do  not  think 
that  I  saw  one  that  will  not  produce  more  than  a  hundred 


711     Two-penny  Trash  ;  1st  September,  1831. 

bushels  of  shelled  corn  to  the  acre.  I  was  particularly  grati- 
fied at  seeing  several  patches  of  the  corn  in  the  gardens  of 
the  working  people  in  the  little  hard  parishes.  I  found  it 
all  as  fine  as  my  own,  and  I  think  I  shall  have  nearly  or 
quite  a  hundred  and  sixty  bushels  of  shelled  corn  from  my 
one  acre  of  ground.  My  corn  was  planted  on  the  12th 
of  May  ;  the  grain  is  now  beginning  to  be  hard,  and  it  will 
soon  be  time  to  cut  off  the  tops  and  the  blades.  I  have 
begun  to  do  it  already,  but  I  do  not  recommend  to  others  to 
begin  before  about  the  7th  of  September,  and  not  then,  un- 
less  the  silk  has  all  disappeared  from  the  tips  of  the  ears. 
When  that  is  the  case,  cut  off  the  top  down  to  within  two 
inches  of  the  topmost  ear,  and  cutoff  all  the  blades  clear  to 
"within  an  inch  of  the  stem.  I  give  these  tops  and  blades  to 
my  horse  and  my  cows ;  and  I  calculate  that  they  will  keep 
the  horse  and  two  cows  for  two  months;  and  the  horse  will 
need  no  corn  while  he  is  eating  these. 

Now,  then,  for  the  great  FOOL-LIAR,  and  the  infamous 
circular,  which  he  sent  by  means  of  his  privilege  of  frank- 
ing, to  all  the  gentlemen  to  whom  I  sent  corn  as  a  present, 
last  s})ring,  for  the  purpose  of  gratuitous  distribution  amongst 
the  labourers.  They  all  keep  the  circular  very  carefully  ; 
and  three  or  four  of  them  have  told  me,  that,  when  the 
corn  harvest  comes,  they  will  put  him  to  shame ;  and,  if 
they  do,  I  shall  not  despair  of  seeing  a  blush  upon  the 
face  of  the  brazen  Achilles,  in  Hyde  Park.  One  gen- 
tleman, who  has  a  whole  neighbourhood  of  labourers,  with 
fine  crops  in  their  gardens,  says,  "  I  have  a  rod  in  soak  for 
the  great  LIAR.'*  I  have  told  him,  that  it  is  not,  here,  a 
question  of  rods,  but  of  broom-sticks  at  the  very  least ;  that, 
here,  ''ten  bull  hides '*  have  to  be  penetrated,  and  that 
there  is  only  that  07ie  susceptible  part  which  little  Mor- 
LEY  found  out  with  the  point  of  his  shoe,  and  which  is  ge- 
nerally looked  upon  as  being  by  far  the  most  intelligent 
extremity  of  this  particular  body.  After  the  tops  and  blades 
are  taken  off,  let  the  stalks  and  the  ears  remain,  till  the 
grain  is  as  hard  as  a  stone,  which  it  will  be,  this  year,  by 
about  the  middle  of  October. — N.  B.  At  my  house  we  have, 
every  day,  a  pudding,  made  of  the  flour  of  this  corn.  At 
Mr.  Saps  ford's.  Baker,  No.  20,  corner  of  Queen  Anne  and 
Wimpole-streets,  both  the  flour  and  the  bread  are  sold. 


[rriiiled  by  Wm.  Cobbett,  JohDsou's-court,  Fleet-street.] 


No.  4.  Vol.  II. 


COBBETT'S 
TWO-PENNY  TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  October,  1831. 


Published  monthly  ^  sold  at  \2s.  Od,  a  hundred,  and  for  300,  taken  at 

once,  lis. 


"  Never  esteem  men  merely  on  account  of  their  riches  or  their 
*'  station.  Respect  goodness,  find  it  where  you  may.  Honour 
**  talent  wherever  you  find  it  unassociated  with  vice;  but  honour 
*'  it  most  when  accompanied  with  exertion,  and  especially  when 
*'  exerted  in  the  cause  of  truth  and  justice  ;  and,  above  all  things, 
*'  hold  it  in  honour  when  it  steps  forward  to  protect  defenceless 
**  innocence  against  the  attacks  of  powerful  men.'* 

Cobbett's  English  Grammar,  Letter  XXIIL 


TO   ALL   THE 

PEOPLE  OF  ENGLAND,  SCOTLAND,  AND  IRELAND, 

BUT  PARTICULARLY   TO 

THE  PEOPLE  OF  HAMPSHIRE, 

ON 

THE  AFFAIR  OF  THE  BARINGS  AND  THE  DEACLES. 


Kcnsingiony  \st  Octoler,  1831, 
Friends  and  Countrymen, 

The  affair  of  the  Barings  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle, 
involving  the  alleged  conduct  of  other  persons,  and  particu- 
larly that  of  the  magistrate^  Long,  of  Preshaw;  if  this 

London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street  j 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 


74  Two-penny  Trash; 

aflfair  affected  only  the  parties ;  if  it  were  merely  a  wrong 
alleged  to  have  been  done  by  some  persons  to  some  other 
persons,  all  private  parties,  then  it  would  not  be  of  that 
great  importance  which  it  now  is.    If  a  powerful  man,  in  his 
private  capacity,  had   done  some  wrong  to  a  poor  neigh- 
bour, it  would  be  a  subject  worthy  of  the  attention,  and  fit 
to  call  forth  the  resentment,  of  all  the  people  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood.    But,  here  the  evil  could  not  be  extensive :  here 
would  be  a  bad  man  doing  a  bad  act  -,  but  not  an  act  likely 
to  operate  to  the  injury  of  the  whole  community.     Not  so  in 
a  case  where  magistrates  and   men  acting   under   public 
authority  commit  acts  of  oppression  ;  for  in  this  case,  the 
example  may  endanger  the  whole  of  the  community ;  the 
cause  of  the  oppressed  party  is  the  cause  of  every  man  and 
woman  making  part  of  that  community  ;  for  the  oppression 
which  lias  been  thus  exercised  on  one  party  to-day,  may  be 
exercised  on  another  to-morrow,  and  the  rhagisterial  office,.^ 
instead  of  being  a  terror  to  evil-doers,  and  a  reward  to  those 
w^ho  do  well,  may  become  the  general  scourge  of  the  inno- 
cent, and  a  terror  to  those  only  who  are  unable  to  resist  the 
strong  arm  of  pow^. 

It  is  in  this  light  that  I  take  up  this  matter,  and  with  all 
this  solemnity  lay  it  before  you.     I  do  not  take  upon  me  ta 
pronounce  whether  the   allegations  against  the  Barings 
and  Long  be^trueor  false ;  but  I  know  that  they  have  been 
made  ;  that  they  have  been  made  in  the  most  solemn  man- 
ner ;  that  the  parties  making  them  have  pledged  themselves 
to  prove  them  to  be  true  ;  that  they  have  prayed  the  House 
of  Commons  to  suffer  them  to  produce  proof  of  that  truth  ; 
and  that  the  House  of  Commons,  upon  the  motion  of  the 
Ministers  themselves,  have  resolved  not  to  let  them  produce 
that  proof,  while  they  call  the  accused  parties  their  honour- 
able friends,  and  declare,  upon  the  honour  of  gentlemen, 
that  they  believe  them  to  be  innocent.     Many  of  you  will 


1st  October,  1831.  75 

remember  that,  on  the  11th  of  May,  1809,  Mr.  Maddox 
made  a  motion  for  leave  to  produce  proof  at  the  bar  of  the 
House  of  Commons  that  Perceval  and  Castlereagh 
had  sold  a  seat  in  that  House  to  a  Mr.  Quinten  Dick. 
A  great  majority  of  the  House  declared  that  they  believed 
the  parties  innocent  of  all  blame;  but  that  same  great  ma- 
jority voted  that  they  would  not  hear  the  evidence  produced. 
Those  who  are  of  my  age,  or  under,  can  recollect  the  unani- 
mous indignation  which  that  vote  excited  throughout  the 
country  3  and  there  is  no  man  who  is  at  all  acquainted  with 
these  things  who  does  not  well  know  that  that  refusal,  to  hear 
the  proof  offered  by  Mr.  Maddox,  was  a  blow  which  that 
House  has  never  recovered. 

It  is  my  desire,  and  it  shall  be  my  endeavour,  to  lay  the 
Tvhole  of  this  matter  before  you  with  perfect  fairness  and 
impartiality;  and,  before  I  enter  upon  it_,  it  seems  to  me 
necessary  that  I  should  satisfy  you  that  I  have  not,  in  this 
case,  any  personal  motive  whatsoever,  arising  out  of  any 
reason  that  I  have  to  have  any  particular  liking  or  disliking 
for  either  of  the  parties.  I  think  this  necessary,  because  I 
have  been  informed  that  the  Barings  have  given  it  out 
that  I  have  some  personal  grudge  against  them;  and  I  be- 
lieve that  they  have  thus  given  it  out,  because  I  see  it  stated 
in  the  Morning  Chronicle^  in  a  paragraph  purporting  to  be 
a  report  of  a  speech  of  Alexander  Baring,  that  "a 
"  powerful  v%^riter ''  (meaning  me)  **  had  stated  that  he  would 
"  ruin  the  Barings/'  Now,  I  once  received  a  very  short 
and  civil  letter  from  Sir  Thomas  Baring,  which  I  imme- 
diately answered  in  a  most  satisfactory  manner  and  with 
equal  civility,  touching  a  mortgage  of  which  he  became  the 
manager,  in  consequence  of  his  having  become  the  executor 
of  the  mortgagee.  With  this  exception,  I  never  wrote  to  a 
man  of  the  name  of  Baring,  nor  received  a  letter  from  a 
man  of  that  name ;  I  never,  to  my  knowledge,  saw  a  man  of 

E   2 


76  Two-PENXY  Trash; 

the  uame  of  Baring  ;  much  less  did  I  ever  speak  to  one, 
in  the  whole  course  of  my  life ;  except  that  I  have  seen  Sir 
Thomas  Baring  twice  at  public  meetings  at  Winchester. 
I  never  had  any  transaction  with  a  Baring,  either  directly 
or  indirectly,  in  the  course  of  my  life. 

What  reason,  then,  can  I  huve  for  doing  anything  against 
the  B.vRiNGS,  other  than  some  'public  reason?  When 
LovELL  and  Cook  were  up  at  Kensington  on  the  day  be- 
fore MY  and  Sir  Thomas  Denman's  trial;  and,  when 
they  w^re  about  to  give  me  an  account  of  the  transactions 
which  formed  the  subject  of  the  affidavits  which  they  made, 
and  which  will  be  found  inserted  in  the  published  account 
of  the  trial,  I  said,  to  Lovell  in  particular,  ^'  Now,  Lovell, 
'*  mind,  I  hate  the  Barings;  and,  therefore,  do  not  you  say 
"  anything  that  you  may  think  will  please  me  :  'tis  not  ne- 
"  cessary  that  I  should  tell  you  why  I  hate  them  ;  but  it  is 
"  right  for  me  thus  to  put  you  upon  your  guard ;  and,  as  you 
*'  work  for  the  Barings,  and  apparently  find  them  good 
*'  masters  to  you,  tell  them  what  I  say  if  you  please."  I  have 
^  never  disguised  my  dislike  to  them ;  and  have  never  de- 
sired that  anything  that  I  said  about  them  should  not  expe- 
rience any  abatement  that  this  well-known  dishke  might 
entitle  it  to. 

But,  my  friends,  though  I  did  not  think  it  necessary  to 
tell  Lovell  the  reason  why  I  hated  the  Barings,  I  will 
tell  you ;  and  then  let  it  go,  if  you  like,  in  abatement  of  any 
thing  that  you  shall  find  bear  against  them  in  this  paper 
which  I  am  now  about  to  write.  1  have  always,  since  I  had 
understanding  of  these  matters,  hated  public  loan»makers ; 
because  I  know  full  well  that  their  w^orks  have,  been  the  ruin 
of  my  country  ;  that  these  works  have  caused  misery  inde- 
scribable to  the  people  of  this  kingdom ;  that  at  this  moment, 
these  works  cause  more  than  one  half  of  the  tax  upon  malt, 
upon  hops,  upon  sugar,  upon  all  that  we  consume ;  because  I 


1st  October,  1831.  77 

know,in  short,  that  they  have  made  this  England,  the  working 
people  of  which  were  once  the  best  fed  and  best  clad  in  the 
world,  a  race  of  miserable  ragged  beings  with  half  a  belly-full 
of  victuals.  My  friends,  to  show  you  that  this  is  no  new  opinion 
of  mine,  and  to  show  you  also  that  the  greatest  and  most  vir- 
tuous statesman  that  this  country  has  known  for  two  hundred 
years  entertained  a  similar  hatred  towards  loan -makers,  I 
will  here  insert  part  of  a  speech  of  the  great  Lord  Chat- 
ham, made  in  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  22nd  of  Novem- 
ber, 1770,  that  is  to  say,  sixty-one  years  ago;  and  to  show 
you  how  long  this  hatred  has  existed  in  my  bosom,  I  will 
take  this  part  of  the  speech  from  my  own  Register,  in  which 
I  inserted  it  as  a  motto  on  the  25Lh  of  January,  1806,  long 
before  the  Barings  became  conspicuous  in  a  hundredth 
part  of  the  degree  that  they  have  now  becom>e  conspicuous ; 
and  long  before  their  loan-m.aking  transactions  had  even 
been  a  subject  of  observation  with  me.  Now,  then,  take  the 
words  of  this  famous  Enorlish  statesman  : — 

o 

**  There  is  a  set  of  men,  my  Lords,  in  the  city  of  London,  who 
**  are  known  to  live  in  riot  and  luxury  upon  the  plunder  of  the  ig- 
**  norant,  the  innocent,  the  helpless;  upon  that  part  of  the  cora- 
**  munity  which  stands  most  in  need  of,  and  that  best  deserves, 
**  the  care  and  protection  of  the  leg-islature.  To  me,  my  Lords, 
*'  whether  they  be  miserable  jobbers  of  'Change  Alley,  or  the  lofty 
**  Asiatic  plunderers  of  Leadenhall-street,  they  are  all  equally  de- 
**  testable.  I  care  but  little  whether  a  man  walks  on  foot,  or  is 
**  drawn  by  eight  horses  or  six  horses;  if  his  luxury  be  supported 
*'  by  the  plunder  of  his  country,  I  despise  and  detest  him.  My 
'*  Lords,  while  I  had  the  honour  of  serving  his  Majesty,  I  never 
"  ventured  to  look  at  the  Treasury  but  at  a  distance  :  it  is  a  busi- 
•*  ness  I  am  unfit  for,  and  to  which  I  could  never  have  submitted. 
'*  The  little  1  know  of  it  has  not  served  to  raise  my  opinion  of  what 
**  is  vulgarly  called  the  ^  Monied  Interest ;*  I  mean,  that  blood- 
**  sucker,  that  muck-worm,  that  calls  itself  the  ^friend  of  go^ 
*^  vermneyit  ;*  that  pretends  to  serve  this  or  that  ad  ministration  ^ 
"  and  may  be  purchased,  on  the  same  terms,  by  any  administra- 
**  tion  ;  advances  money  to  government,  and  takes  special  care  of 
*'  its  own  emoluments.  Under  this  description  1  include  the  whole 
**  race  of  commissaries,  jobbers,  contractors,  clothiers,  and  re- 
**  mitters.  Yet  I  do  not  deny,  that,  even  witli  those  creatures, 
"  some  management   may  be  necessary ;  and  1  hope,  my  Lords, 


"^8  Two-penny  Trash; 

"  that  nothing  I  have  said  will  be  understood  to  extend  to  the 
**  honest  industrious  tradesman,  who  holds  the  middle  rank,  and 
««  has  given  repeated  proofs,  that  he  prefers  law  and  liberty  to 
''  gojd.  Much  less  would  I  be  thought  to  reflect  upon  the  fair  mer- 
*^  chant,  whose  liberal  commerce  is  the  prime  source  of  national 
'^  wealth.  1  esteem  his  occupation,  and  respect  his  character." 
— Speech  of  the  great  Earl  of  Chatham,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  on 
the  22d  of  November,  1770. 

These  were  the  opinions  of  the  last  really  wise  and  upright 
-    statesman    that  England  has  heard.       He  detested   these 
money-lenders,   whether  walking  on  foot  or  drawn  by  six 
horses;    he   called  their  immense   profits  ''plunder;'^    he 
charged  them  with  living  in  riot  and  luxury  upon  the  plun- 
der of  the  ignorant,  the  innocent,  the  helpless,  which  stood 
in  most  need  of,  and  best  deserved,  the  care  and  protection 
of  the  Parliament.      He  expressed  his  detestation  of  this  de- 
scription of  men;  of  all  these  contractors  and  jobbers  dnid 
remitters,  w^hom  he  contradistinguished  from  the  fair  mer- 
chant and  honest  and  industrious  tradesman,  whose  occupa- 
tion he  esteemed  and  whose  character  he  respected.     Now, 
I  have  never  expressed  detestation  of  the  BaPvIngs  ;  I  have 
never  spoken  of  them  in  terms  a  hundredth  part  so  harsh  as 
this  great  nobleman  spoke  of  the  whole  race.     If  these  were 
his  sentiments  then,  how  would  he  have  expressed  himself 
now  ?     Have  I  not,  then,  a  right  to  have  my  opinions  and 
my  feelings  with  regard  to  this  race  of  men  as  well  as  he  or 
anybody  else  ?     This  family,  the  very  beginner  of  which  has 
not  had  his  name  known  to  the  public  more  than  about  thir- 
ty-four years,  and  who  was  a  mere  merchant*s  clerk,  or  some- 
thing of  that  sort,  about  forty-six  years  ago  ;  the  very  father 
of  all  this  race  would  not  now,  if  he  were  alive,  be  able  to 
claim  a  standing  in  society  for  more  than  thirty-five  or  thir- 
ty-six years,   at  the   utmost ;    and  this  family,  who  have 
twenty -eight  thousand  acres  of  land  in  one  spot  in  Hamp- 
shire, have,  in  England,  if  I  am  rightly  informed,  upwards 
tof  a  himdred  and  twenty  thousand  acres  of  land,  besides 


■    1st  October,  1831.  79 

houses  countless  in  number  ;  besides  mills ;  besides  church 
livings.  In  short,  they  possess  half  la  dozen  lords'  estates  ;  and 
though  I  accuse  them  of  nothing  unlawful  in  getting  all  this ; 
though  I  impute  to  them  nothing  that  is  called  cheating  or 
robbing  or  swindling,  or  anything  unlaw'ful,  I  am  sorry  that 
they  have  it,  and  I  hate  and  abhor  the  system  of  government 
under  which  they  could  have  acquired  it.  without  any  talent 
beyond  that  of  mere  ordinary  tradesmen  ;  without  having 
performed  any  one  thing  meriting  public  gratitude  or  ap- 
plause ;  without  any  one  of  them  having  done  anything  to 
benefit  or  reflect  honour  upon  the  country  or  its  institutions. 
If  I  be  asked  w^hat  is  it  to  me  how  many  estates  they  have, 
and  how  many  noblemen  and  gentlemen  they  have  sup- 
planted, I  say.  It  is  something  to  me,  and  a  good  deal  too. 
I  have  a  right  to  feel  concerned  for  the  good  and  the  honour 
of  the  country.  I  know  that  there  can  be  no  good  and  happy 
community,  aye,  and  no  real  freedom,  unless  the  people  be 
governed  by  that  natural  magistracy  which  grows  out  of 
long-settled  proprietorship  of  land  ;  I  know  that  there  can 
be  no  willing  obedience  ;  that  there  can  be  no  just  distribu- 
tion of  property  and  of  power,  unless  a  very  great  part  of  the 
submission  to  the  law^s  arise  from  the  habitual  and  the  tra- 
ditionary respect  of  the  people  towards  the  immediate  ma- 
gistracy. I  know  that,  when  this  natural  magistracy  is  de- 
stroyed, there  must  come  coercion,  and  that  force  must  com- 
mand an  unwilling  obedience;  I  know^  that  this  system  of 
upstarts  has  a  direct  tendency  totally  to  destroy  the  good 
laws  and  customs  of  England,  and  that  it  has,  in  a  great 
measure,  destroyed  them. 

Here  woiild  be  quite  enough  to  justify  the  antipathy 
which  I  entertain  towards  this  whole  race  of  men,  of  w^hich 
the  Barings  have,  by  their  ow^n  act  and  deed,  and,  in  the 
indulgence  of  their  own  vanity,  arrogantly  placed  themselves 
at  the  head  ;  for  Sir  Thomas  Baring^  in  setting  forth  his 


80  Two-penny  Trash; 

pedigree,  tells  us  that  his  arms  are  **  azure ,  a  f esse,  or,  in 
*•  chief,  a  bears  head  proper,  mi^zzled  and  ringed,  or.^^ 
I  like  the  *'  bears  head**  monstrously,  and  particularly 
I  like  to  see  it  *'  muzzled  and  ringed.'*  It  does  not  seem 
that  the  bear's  paws  are  hand-cuffed.  What  pity  that  the 
whole  band,  the  banker  and  all,  did  not  go  to  Marvvell 
equipped  like  the  Baring -Arms  I  We  should  not  then 
have  had  all  this  fuss  !  In  this  pedigree,  Sir  Thomas  tells 
lis  that  his  father  was  "  enabled,  by  his  affluence,  to  assist 
^^  the  minister''  (just  as  Lord  Chatham  said !)  ^' in  the 
**  various  loans  required,  and  that  he  soon  became  the  lead- 
**  ing  member  of  the  monied  interest,  and  even  the  pros^ 
^^  perity  of  JEnglajid,  at  certain  periods,  may  be  said  to 
^*  have  revolved  around  him,  as  its  primum  mobile.''  I 
take  this  from  the  "  Baronetage  of  England,"  pub- 
lished by  Debrett  in  1819;  and  anything,  at  once,  so 
stupid,  so  insolent,  and  so  grovellingly  vulgar,  I  never  not 
only  took  from  any  book,  but  never  read  in  any  dirty  news- 
paper, even  that  of  Jacob  and  Johnson,  in  the  whole  course 
of  my  life.  Why,  if  there  were  nothing  but  this  to  make  me 
hate  them,  this  would  be-  quite  sufficient.  The  prosperity 
of  England  revolved  round  him  !  The  prosperity  of  Eng^ 
land  revolve  round  a  fellow  that  had  been  a  mere  city  go- 
between  of  old  Lord  Shelbourne,  and  had  not  been 
known  to  the  community  for  more  than  five-and-twenty 
years !  A  pretty  thing  England  must  have  become  !  Eng- 
land is  my  country,  at  any  rate,  and  I  have  certainly  a 
right  to  resent  this  upstart,  beggar-like  insult. 

If,  indeed,  any  of  the  family  had  ever  performed  any 
service  to  the  country,  real  or  pretended,  it  would  be  another 
matter.  If  one  had  seen  a  great  parcel  of  estates  in  the 
hands  of  Lord  Nelson  and  his  heir.  Instances  of  that  kind 
happen  so  rarely,  that  the  precedent  is  not  dangerous;  and 
besides,  the  country  has  something  to  show  for  the  cost ; 


1st  October,  1831.  81 

the  deeds  are  so  ennobling  that  they  silence  all  political 
reasoning  about  the  matter.     But,  what  do  we  behold  here  ? 
In  one  single  spot  a  great  slice  of  a  county  ;  three  Lords 
supplanted  upon  one  spot  by  these  loan-rnongers  ;  and  just  on 
the  skirts  of  their  domain,  there  sticks  the  descendant  of 
Lord  Rodney,  w^ho  really  revived  the  character  of  England 
at  a  time  when  it  was  at  a  very  low  ebb,  cooped  up  in  a 
little  bit  of  ground,  not  much  more  than  enough  to  be  a 
cabbage-garden  for  the  Barings;  and  there  is  that  poor 
Cranley  Onslow  too,  descended  from  one  of  the  greatest 
and  most  upright  lawyers,  and  most  learned  and  best  men 
that  ever  lived,  and  owing  to  him  and  his  fame  the  name  of 
Cranley,  a  little  village  in  Surrey,  the  name  of  which 
the  Speaker  Onslow    chose    for  his   title   of  Baron.     I 
have  been  called  a  jacobin  and  leveller :  this  is  your  true 
levelling,  stripping  lords  of  their  estates,  by  the  means  of 
taxation,  and  giving  them  to  those  who  have  thriven  upon 
that  taxation.     And  if  it  be  asked  what  harm  this  does, 
again  I  say.  It  destroys  the  natural  magistracy  of  the  coun- 
try ;  it  takes  away  the  salutary  influence  of  habitual  and 
traditionary  respect_,  and  it  demands  coercion  in  its  stead ; 
and  coercion  casts  aside  the  sheriff's  wand  and  the  consta- 
ble's staff,  and  brings  the  standing  bayonet  and  the  gen* 
darmerie. 

These  are  the  grouncjls,  fully  and  frankly  stated,  of  my 
hatred  of  the  Barings;  but  what  hatred,  what  precon- 
ceived hatred,  did  it  require  to  bring  me  forth  to  the  cause 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle  ?  Now,  reader,  look  at  the  motto 
which  I  have  placed  at  the  head  of  this  paper.  The  words 
of  that  motto  were  addressed  to  one  son,  and  were,  of  course, 
addressed  also  to  all  the  rest  of  my  children,  and  to  the 
hundreds  and  thousands  (and  I  may  say  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands) of  young  people ;  for  the  Grammar,  as  its  title  ex- 
presses^ was  "  intended  for  the  use  of  schools,  and  of  young 

E  5 


82  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

'^  persons  in  general;  but  more  especially  for  the  use  of 
"  soldiers,   sailors,  apprentices  and  plough-boys/'     What 
other  motive  do  I  want  than  the  precept  inculcated  in  that 
motto?     The  motto  was  written   in   Long  Island  thirteen 
years   ago.     I  could  know  nothing  then  about   the  small 
handcuffs :  I  could  have  no  such  thing  in  my  eye.     The 
precept  had  been  the  rule  of  my  conduct  all  my  life-time ; 
and  what  have  I  done  other  than  act  upon  it  now  ?     Here 
are   Mr.    and   Mrs.    Deacle,    in   my   opinion  innocent; 
proved  to  be  innocent  in  a  court  of  justice;  a  jury  have 
pronounced  them   innocent;  and  I  find  them  attacked  by 
*'  powerful  menr     I  find  in  them  people  wholly  unable  to 
defend  themselves  against  such  power,     I  find  them  at- 
tacked in  the  newspapers,  under  the  names  of  men  of  great 
wealth  and  power ;  I  find  them,  after  their  acquittal  in  a 
court  of  justice,  branded  by  the  newspapers,    under  the 
/names  of  Francis   Baring   and   Sergeant  Wilde, 
.  as  having  been  guilty  of  felony ;  I  examine  all  the  news- 
papers, and  find  them  all  to  agree  in  the  infamous  libel ;  I 
see  the  villanous  libellers,  Jacob  and  Johnson,  spread  the 
calumnies  all  over  the  county,  and  even  to  the  very  door  of 
Mr.  Deacle  ;  I  see  these  printers  refuse  to  publish  a  letter 
from  Mr.  Deacle,  defending  himself  against  these  calum- 
nies :  in  short,  I  see  them  innocent  and  defenceless,  and 
attacked  by  men  who  have  power  in  their  hands ;  and  then 
it  is,  and  not  till  then,  that  I  take  up  their  cause.     Is  not, 
therefore,  my  conduct  straight  and  consistent  ?     What  am 
I  doing  but  acting  upon  the  precept  which  I  have  constantly 
and  sedulously  taught,  and    as  constantly  made  the  rule 
of  my  conduct  ?     And  what  is  to  become  of  defenceless  in- 
nosence,  if  talent  will  not  step  forward  in  its  defence  when 
attacked  by  powerful  men? 

Here,  then,  I  cast  aside  all  these  imputations  about  pri- 
vate malice  and  denunciations  of  ruin  :  let  the  Barings 


1st  October,  1831.  83 

howl,  or,  rather,  growl,  like  the  animal  w^hose  head  they  take 
for  their  crest :  let  them  talk  about  motives  as  long  as  they 
please  ;  and  let  me,  my  friends,  now  go  into  the  merits  of 
this  case  in  as  plain  a  manner  as  I  can  consistently  with  the 
necessary  brevity.  On  the  23d  of  November  last,  the  riot- 
ing and  machine-breaking  took  place  in  the  parishes  round 
about  Marw^ell,  where  Mr.  Deacle  lived  on  a  farm  which 
he  rented  of  Mrs.  Long.  The  rioters,  or,  rather,  the  w^ork- 
ing  people  who  were  demanding  a  rise  of  wages,  went  to  Mr. 
Deacle's,  broke  his  thrashing-machine,  pressed  his  men  to 
join  them,  and  made  him  give  them  two  pounds  in  money. 
From  his  house  they  went  to  that  of  his  neighbour  Smith, 
another  farmer,  whither  Mr.  Deacle  followed  them,  in 
order  to  prevent  them  from  doing  acts  of  violence  to  his 
neighbours.  Being  in  Mr.  Smith's  house  along  with  other 
farmers  who  had  joined  them,  they,  in  Mr.  Smith's  par- 
lour, drew  up  a  paper,  to  be  signed  by  landowners  and  land- 
occupiers,  the  former  promising  to  reduce  rents  and  tithes, 
and  the  latter  to  give  the  men  twelve  shillings  a  week.  This 
paper  was  shown  to  the  men  in  order  to  quiet  them  ;  and, 
at  the  desire  of  the  whole,  it  was  carried  round  by  farmer 
Boyes  to  the  several  farmers  and  gentlemen's  houses  that  the 
people  went  to.  Mr.  Deacle  went  as  far  as  Mrs.  Long's, 
and,  when  the  paper  had  been  signed  there,  he  went  away. 
By  fifty  credible  witnesses,  it  can  be  proved  that  thfs  was 
the  conduct  of  Mr.  Deacle,  on  the  23d  of  November,  and 
that  this  was  all  that  he  had  had  to  do  with  the  matter.  As 
to  Mrs.  Deacle,  she  was  out  taking  a  ride,  and  she  rode, 
out  of  curiosity,  to  see  what  the  mob  were  doing.  One 
charge  against  her  was,  that  she  sat  upon  a  horse  looking  at 
them  and  smiling.  I  know  of  no  law,  either  from  the 
pen  of  Ellenborough,  Lansdown,  or  Peel,  to  for- 
bid smiling.     Such  was  the  conduct  of  these  two  parties. 


'84  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

doing  no  one  thing  that  was  either  unlawful  or  unneighbour- 
ly, during  the  whole  of  the  day,  being  greatly  injured  in 
their  property,  but  humanely  submitting  to  the  injury,  from 
reflecting  on  the  starving  state  of  the  labourers. 

Notwithstanding  this  offensive  conduct,  the  next  day  war- 
rants were  issued  against  them  and  for  apprehending  them, 
upon  depositions  that  have  never  yet  been  produced ;  and 
three  constables,  with  a  coal-cart  and  handcuffs,  small  hand- 
cuffs as  w^ell  as  great,  were  sent  from  the  jail  of  Winchester 
to  bring  them  from  that  jail.  Two  magistrates,  Francis 
T.  Baring,  son  of  Thomas,  and  Bingham  Baring,  son 
of  Alexander,  accompanied  by  Robert  Wright,  a 
parson,  Captain  Nevill  of  Easton,  one  Seagrim  an  at- 
torney, and  Mr.  Deane,  a  banker  of  Winchester,  went  off 
on  horseback  to  assist  in  the  capture  and  in  the  bringing  to 
jail  of  these  two  innocent  persons.  I  assert  them  to  be  in- 
nocent, because  the  lady  has  never  been  brought  to  any  trial 
at  all,  and  because  Mr.  Deacle  was  indicted  for  the  pre- 
tended offence,  and  acquitted,  without  producing  any  evi- 
dence of  his  own  ;  acquitted  at  once,  in  consequence  of  the 
evidence  given  by  his  accusers*  witnesses ;  all  which  3^ou  will 
please  to  bear  in  mind ;  and  of  course  you  will  bear  in 
mind  always,  that  these  are  two  persons  w'ho  have  been 
falsely  accused,  and  w'ho  have  been  proved  to  be  innocent,  of 
the  alleged  crimes  with  which  they  were  charged. 

Quite  bad  enough,  quite  oppression  enough,  if  we  were  to 
stop  here ;  but  we  have  now  to  see  the  manner  of  the  arrest ; 
the  manner  in  which  innocent  persons  were  seized  and 
treated ;  and  here  I  proceed  to  state  facts  which  the  par- 
ties accused  affect  to  deny  the  truth  of.  The  facts  which  I 
have  before  stated  relative  to  the  perfect  innocence  of  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Deacle  of  all  crime  whatsoever  in  this  case,  are  facts 
which  neither  the  Barings  nor  anybody  else  pretend  to  deny. 


1st  October,  1831.  85 

But  the  facts  I  am  now  about  to  state  are  facts  for  which  I 
do  not  vouch,  but  which  rest  on  the  evidence  given  by  LE^y- 
INGTON,  SwiTZER,  and  Mr.  Deacle's  servant  girl,  at  the 
last  Summer  Assizes,  upon  a  trial  on  an  action  brought  by 
Mr.  Deacle  against  five  of  the  afore- mentioned  parties  for 
the  violences  committed  by  those  parties  at  the  time  of  the 
seizure  as  aforesaid.  Lewington,  who  was  the  chief  of 
the  constables,  says  that  he  went  to  Mr.  Deacle's  house 
with  the  persons  before-mentioned.  That  he  went  into  the 
house  with  the  two  Barings,  and  with  AVrigiit,  the  par- 
son;  that  Bingham  Baring  told  him  to  handcuff  Mr, 
and  Mrs.  Deacle;  that  he,  Lewington,  hesitated,  but 
that  he  finally  handcuffed  them,  one  to  the  other;  that  Mrs. 
Deacle  wished  to  put  on  her  bonnet  and  shawl,  but  that 
Bingham  Baring  said  he  could  not  wait;  that  Bing- 
ham Baring  pulled  out  a  pistol,  and  put  it  to  the  head  of 
a  man  who  had  Mr.  Deacle's  gun  and  told  him  to  give  it 
up ;  that  Mrs.  Deacle  was  put  up  into  a  cart ;  that  the  road 
was  very  rough;  that  Bingham  Baring  ordered  him 
(Lewington)  to  trot,  which  made  the  cart  shake  very 
much;  that  Bingham  Baring  struck  Mr.  Deacle  a 
back-handed  blow  with  a  stick  while  Mr.  Deacle  was 
handcuffed  in  the  cart.  The  evidence  of  Switzer  corro- 
borated this,  and  the  servant  girl  swore  that  Bingham 
Baring  took  Mrs.  Deacle  under  his  arm,  round  the 
waist,  and  carried  her,  her  legs  dangling  one  way  and  her 
head  another. 

Now,  observe,  I  was  not  in  Court  when  this  evidence  was 
given  ;  but  such  is  the  evidence,  according  to  the  report 
published  in  all  the  newspapers.  The  jury  gave  a  verdict 
oi  fifty  pounds  against  Bingham  Baring,  and  nothing- 
against  any  of  the  rest.  Such  was  the  evidence  in  the 
Court  given  upon  the  oaths  of  these  witnesses ;  there  was 
much  more,  but  this  was  the  substance  of  it.     Now,  we  ga 


S6  Two-penny  Trash; 

to  the  petition  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle,  which  they  pre- 
sented in  consequence  of  the  atrocious  slanders  put  forth 
against  them  by  the  newspapers,  under  the  title  of  the  report 
of  speeches  in  Parliament.  They  say,  that  Bingham  Bar- 
ing seized  Mr.  Deacle  by  the  collar,  that  he  then  held 
one  of  his  arms,  that  Francis  Baring  held  another,  and 
that  the  parson  held  him  by  the  skirts,  while  Lewington, 
by  the  positive  order  of  Bingham  Baring,  put  the  hand- 
cuff upon  one  of  the  hands  of  Mr.  Deacle  ;  that  Mrs. 
Deacle  was  sitting  in  another  part  of  the  room;  that 
Francis  Baring  went  and  hauled  her  up  to  have  her 
hand  put  in  the  other  part  of  the  same  handcuff,  so  as  to 
have  them  fastened  together ;  that  after  this,  in  pulling  her 
along  to  get  them  out  of  the  house,  Mrs.  Deacle's  hand 
came  out  of  the  handcuff,  and  that  it  was  Francis  Bar- 
ing, and  not  Bingham,  that  dragged  her  and  carried  her 
across  the  yard  to  the  cart,  into  which  Nevill,  captain  in 
the  navy,  got,  in  order  to  pull  her  up.  There  is  this  differ- 
ence between  the  evidence  in  Court  and  this  statement  in 
the  petition ;  that  the  servant  girl  ascribed  the  carrying 
and  the  dragging  to  Bingham,  and  not  to  Francis  Bar- 
ing ;  but  the  girl  had  never  seen  either  of  them  before, 
and  did  not  know  one  from  the  other.  It  is  not  denied  that 
the  cart  was  made  to  trot  in  a  very  rough  road  ;  it  is  not 
denied  that  the  constable,  Switzer,  pledged  himself  to 
be  answerable  for  Mrs.  Deacle,  if  they  would  let  her  ride 
her  horse ;  and  that  they  refused  this.  When  the  cart 
arrived  at  Winchester  Hill,  there  was  the  jailer,  Beckett, 
in  a  post-chaise,  and  into  that  chaise  they  were  put  along 
with  this  common  jailer,  who  took  them  to  the  jail,  where 
they  were  treated  as  felonious  malefactors. 

Now,  observe,  as  far  as  relates  to  this  statement  of  Mr, 
and  Mrs.  Deacle,  the  statement  at  present  rests  upon 
their  word  only.     We  cannot  say  the  same,  by  any  means. 


1st  October,  1831.  87 

with  regard  to  the  evidence  in  Court,  for  that  evidence  was 
given  upon  oath  before  a  judge  and  jury,  and  the  jury  found 
a  verdict  against  Bingham  Baring  at  any  rate;  and  we 
are  to  observe  also,  that  tlie  constables  were  persons  in  the 
employ  of  these  magistrates  ;  that  they  depended  upon  them, 
in  some  measure,  for  their  bread,  and  that  their  evidence  had 
always  been  thought  very  good,  when  given  against  persons 
that  were  prosecuted. 

Mrs.  Deacle,  as  I  have  before  observed,  was,  after 
about  three  days'  imprisonment,  let  out  of  the  jail,  and  has 
never  been  called  to  any  account  since.  Mr.  Deacle  also 
was  let  out  without  bail  of  any  sort  or  for  any  purpose  ;  but 
having  threatened  to  bring  an  action  against  the  magistrates, 
he  was  indicted  for  a  misdemeanour,  in  going  about  with  a 
paper  to  compel  landlords  and  parsons  to  reduce  rents  and 
tithes.  The  trial  of  this  indictment,  however,  was  put  off 
to  the  Lent  Assizes,  when  he  was  tried  and  acquitted,  as  I 
before  observed,  in  the  most  honourable  manner,  according 
to  the  declaration  of  the  judge  himself.  He  was  acquitted, 
without  having  an  opportunity  of  producing  a  witness  in  his 
defence,  and  without  counsel  being  heard  in  his  defence : 

-  the  evidence  against  him  was  so  manifestly  good  for  nothing, 
that  the  judge  would  not  suffer  any  witness  to  be  called  ia 
his  defence.  Well,  then,  here  we  have  the  innocence  of  the 
parties  completely  established  :  here  we  have  proof  that  they 
ought  not  to  have  been  seized  at  all ;  ought  not  to  have 
been  taken  up,  or  troubled  for  a  single  moment,  even  in  the 
mildest  and  most   gentle  manner.     If,  then,  the  evidence 

-  produced  upon  the  trial  of  the  action  be  taken  to  be  true  ; 
-if  Lewington  and  Switzer  and  the  servant  girl  be  not 
.declared  perjurers  upon  the  bare  word  of  the  Barings, 

what  are  we  to  think  of  the  handcuffs,  what   are  we  to 
think  of  the  dragging  across  the  yard,  the  joltings  in  -the 


88  Two-penny  Trash; 

cart,  the  cramming  into  a  post-chaise  with  a  common  jailer, 
and  the  cramming  into  jail  as  felonious  malefactors  ? 

Now,  please  to  mark.     Lewington's  evidence  and  the 
other  constable's  were  given  in  the  trial  of  the  action  at  the 
Summer  Assizes,  when  the  result  was  a  verdict  of ^ify  pounds 
against  Bingham    Baring.     This  verdict  astonished  the 
whole  world,  as  far  as  the  new^s  of  it  reached.     Every  one 
exclaimed,    *^   F\fty  founds !  *'     But  Mr.   DeaCle  did 
nothing.     He  was,  probably,  not  very  well  contented  with 
the  verdict ;  but  he  was  content  to  let  that,  and  the  report 
of  the  trial,  imperfect  as  that  report  was,  produce  their  na- 
tural effect  upon  the  public  mind.     He  and  Mrs.  Deacle 
had  suffered  a  great  deal,  to  be   sure  ;  but  he   was  content 
wdth  what  he  was  sure  would  be  the  decision  of  the  pub- 
lic.    He  w^as  not  wrong  in  his  calculations.     The  public 
cried  aloud  against  the  actors  in  the  scene  at  Marwell ; 
and  the  press,  urged  on  by  the  public,  inveighed  most  bit- 
terly against  those  parties,     Bingham  Baring  had  now 
to  contend,  not  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle,  but  with  the 
public  and  the  press*     He  published ;  and  he  made  the 
matter  worse.     In  this  state  of  things,  Colonel  Evans,  a 
member  of  Parliament  (without  any  intimation  of  his  inten- 
tion to  Mr.  Deacle,  observe),  brought  the  subject  before 
Parliament  in  the  shape  of  a  motion  for  the  judges'  notes, 
or  something  of  that  sort.     But,  though  he  gave  no  intima- 
tion to  Mr.  Deacle,  he  had  taken  care  to  give  intimation 
of  it  to  the  Barings  ;  and  there  were  they  and  Mr.  Ser- 
geant Wilde.     It  is  not  for  me  to  say  what  these  men 
said  in  Parliament ;  but  it  is  for  me  to  say  that  the  Morn* 
ing  Chronicle  pubhshed  under  their  names  the  most  out- 
rageous abuse  and  most  atrocious  accusations  against  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Deacle  ;  under  the  names  of  both  these  men,  the 
DzACLES  were  again  accused  of  acts  of  felony,  though 


I 


1st  October,  1831.  -      89 

honourably  acquitted  at  Winchester,  in  tlie  manner  before 
described ;  and  while  the  dirty  printers,  Jacob  and  John- 
son, circulated  these  calumnies  against  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Deacle,  they  refused  to  publish  a  letter  of  Mr.  Deacle, 
written  in  his  own  defence  against  those  calumnies. 

Thus  stood  the  matter  for  a  little  while;  but  Mr.  Dea- 
cle, unable  to  get  any  means  of  rebutting  these  slanders, 
petitioned,  along  with  Mrs.  Deacle,  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, by  petition  dated  29th  July,  and  which  petition  was 
presented  by  the  same  Colonel  Evan  s,  on  the  22d  of  August. 
It  is  from  this  petition  that  I  have  taken  the  statement 
above-mentioned.  This  petition,  which  told  all  the  story 
about  Long  and  about  Barnes,  seems  to  have  astounded 
the  men  of  millions.  A  committee  was  talked  of,  after  the 
petition  had  been  presented  ;  but  that  went  off  somehow  or 
another,  and  nothing  was  done ;  and  nothing  w^ould  have 
been  done  to  this  moment  if  the  people  had  not  taken  up  the 
matter;  but  they  did  take  it  up.  Petitions  came  pouring  in 
from  all  parts  of  the  country,  praying  for  an  investigation 
into  this  affair.  During  two  or  three  nights,  the  excuse  for 
not  appointing  a  committee  w^as,  that  the  Barings  in^ 
tended  further  legal  proceedings.  Member  after  member 
declared  that  a  committee  ought  to  be  granted,  but  that,  as 
further  legal  proceedings  were  inteyided  by  the  Barings, 
the  proceedings  of  a  committee  might  prejudice  those  pro- 
ceedings. Now,  do  mark  this.  Alexander  Baring^ 
saw,  of  course,  that  if  the  committee  was  prevented  from 
this  consideration,  further  legal  proceedings  must  be  com" 
menced;  and,  therefore,  he  then  confessed  that  the  family 
had  consulted  lawyers,  and  that  they  had  resolved  not  to  take 
any  further  legal  proceedings.  Oh  !  now  then,  a  commit- 
tee, of  course;  and  Colonel  Evans  appointed  Tuesday, 
the  27th  of  September,  to  move  for  that  committee ;  after 
Mr,  Hume  had  presented  a  second  petition  calling  for  a 


90  Two-penny  Trash; 

committee  -,  after  this,  Colonel  Evans  did  move  for  a  com- 
mittee, when,  to  the  utter  astonishment  of  all  London,  he 
was,  by  the  mouth  of  Lord  Altiioup,  opposed  by  the  whole 
Government,  who,  upon  this  occasion,  were  joined  by  Peel, 
GouLBOURN  and  Burdett,  all  of  v/hom  said  that  they 
believed  that  the  honourable  gentlemen,  the  Barings, 
most  anxiously  desired  the  committee,  in  order  that  they 
might  clear  themselves  in  the  eyes  of  the  public;  but  that 
it  was  a  case  w^hich  would  render  a  committee  improper. 

The  House  at  last  divided,  when  there  was  a  great  majo- 
rity against  the  committee.     So  that  here  are  a  parcel  of 
people,  telling  us  that  they  believe  the  Barings  to  be  inno- 
cent, calling  the  Barings  their  honourable  friends;  having 
the  greatest  confidence  that  they  would  be  able  completely  to 
disprove,  not  only  the  assertions  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deacle, 
but  the  sworn  evidence  of  Lewington,  Switzer  and  the 
servant  girl.     Here  are  they  almost  solemnly  declaring  this; 
and,  at  the  same  time,  refusing  their  honourable  friends  the 
only  possible  means   of  making   their  innocence    appear! 
But,  my  friends,  mark  particularly  what  the  reporter  ascribes 
to  Lord  Althorp.     The  reporter  says^  that  he  pledged  his 
honour,  as  a  gentleman,  that  *^he  opposed  the  motion  with 
"  great  unwillingness ,  because  he  had  a  high  esteem  for  the 
*'  honourable  member  for  Portsmouth  (Francis  Baring), 
*'  and  it  gave  him  great  pain  to  do  anything  which  might 
*'  prevent  that  gentleman  from  setting  himself  right  in  the 
^'  estimation  of  the  public."     This  he  declared  upon  the 
word  of  a  man  of  honour  and  a  gentleman  !     After  which,  I 
think  we  may  with  propriety  call  him  '*  the  man  of  honour y 
und  the  gentlemany 

People  of  Hampshire  particularly,  if  any  ot  you,  either  at 
Portsmouth  or  Winchester  or  anywhere  else,  have  enter- 
tained a  thought  of  electing  any  one  or  more  of  these  Bar- 
ings to  represent  you,  and  especially  if  any  one  should  apply 


1st  October,  1831.  91 

to  you  to  promise  them  your  votes,  give  the  applicant  this 
sensible  and  honest  answer:  ''It  is  my  duty,  above  all 
**  things,  to  take  care  that  the  man  that  I  vote  for,  shall  not 
^'  be  suspected  of  a  disposition  to  put  the  liberty  and  lives 
"  of  myself  and  my  countrymen  in  jeopardy  :  two  of  these 
*' Barings  stand  accused  of  the  memorable  acts  com- 
'*  mitted  at  Mar  well ;  and,  until  they  be  cleared  of  that 
*'  charge,  I  should  regard  myself  as  an  infamous  villain  if  I 
"  voted  for  either  of  them,  or  for  any  of  their  abettors  or  up- 
^' holders/'  If  the  applicant  answer,  that  the  Barings 
most  earnestly  want  an  investigation  in  order  that  they  may 
clear  themselves  ;  but  that  the  Ministers  and  the  House  will 
not  let  them  have  it,  your  reply  is,  "  That  is  very  strange  : 
'*  the  Ministers  call  them  their  honourable  friends,  and  one 
'*  of  them  is  a  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  and  a  relation  of  the 
*'  Prime  Minister :  most  strange  it  is^  therefore,  that,  if  the 
"  Ministers  believe  them  to  be  capable  of  proviiig  their 
'*  innocencey  they  will  not  grant  them  the  means  of  proving 
'^  it,  and  of  thereby  crushing  the  Deacles  for  ever  ;  of  re- 
"  moving  completely  the  accusation  from  the  families  of  the 
^'  Grange  and  Stratton,  causing  the  whole  people  to  rush 
^*  forward  in  their  behalf,  making  them  the  most  popular 
"  men  in  the  county,  and,  in  fact,  giving  them  the  com- 
**  mand  of  it."  If  the  applicant  for  votes  for  the  Barings 
shall  persevere,  and  say  that  the  Ministers  are  obstinate,  are 
resolved  not  to  give  their  friends  an  opportunity  of  proving 
their  innocence,  w^hich  they  so  easily  might  do,  the  final  an- 
swer of  every  honest  man  will  be,  '^  Well,  then,  I  cannot 
*'  help  that ;  I  cannot  be  sure  of  their  innocence  until  Mr. 
"  and  Mrs.  Deacle's  prayer  be  granted  ;  I  cannot  be  sure 
^*  of  their  innocence  until  it  be  proved,  and  therefore,  if  the 
"  Ministers  do  not  give  way  in  behalf  of  their  honourable 
"friends,  I  must  choose  somebody  else  ;  for  this  is  a  thing 
^'such  as  was  never  heard  of  before  in  the  world.     Suppose 


92  Two-penny  Trash  5 

"  my  SOD  to  be  accused  of  some  great  offence  which 
**  makes  him  wholly  unfit  to  associate  with  anybody 
"  but  downright  tyrannical  brutes :  Suppose  me  to  be 
*'  thoroughly  convinced  of  his  innocence ;  suppose  the 
*'  case  to  be  such  as  that  he  can  prove  his  innocence  in 
"  a  minute,  and  without  a  farthing  of  expense,  and  that  it 
^'  only  requires  my  consent  to  his  going  into  that  proof, 
'^  would  not  all  the  world  condemn  me  as  the  worst  brute 
*'  in  nature,  if  I  refused  that  consent  ?  If,  indeed,  I  believe 
*^  him  to  be  (juilty,  or  if  I  strongly  suspected  it,  then  I  should 
"  prefer  his  continuing  without  an  attempt  to  produce  the 
''  proof  of  his  innocence,  to  his  having  a  trial  that  must  end 
^'  in  his  conviction."  Here  is  not  a  son  here ;  but  here  is 
something  very  near  it.  Francis  Baring  is  accused  by 
Mrs.  Deacle  of  hauling  her  up,  and  holding  her  arm  while 
the  handcuff  is  put  upon  it ;  then  dragging  her  along  with 
such  violence  as  to  pull  her  hand  out  of  the  bolt  which  is 
held  to  her  merely  by  the  ruffle  which  has  caught  in  the 
snap  of  the  bolt.  She  further  accuses  him  of  dragging  her 
into  the  yard  without  any  cover  upon  her  head,  of  lugging 
her  across  the  yard  like  a  furze  bavin,  under  his  arm, 
then  hoisting  her  up  into  the  coal-cart,  where  there  is 
Nevill  to  pull  her  by  the  arms  as  if  she  were  a  calf 
or  a  sheep  going  into  the  cart  of  a  butcher.  This  is 
what  Mrs.  Deacle  asserts  respecting  the  conduct  of 
Francis  T.  Baring.  This  man  has  married  the  niece  of 
the  Prime  Minister,  Lord  Grey.  Lord  Grey  must  have 
seen  this  over  and  over  again.  He  must  have  talked  the 
subject  over  with  this  Baring  himself,  as  well  as  with 
others.  He  must  have  talked  to  the  Attorney-General 
about  it;  now,  then,  suppose  yourself,  reader,  in  the  place 
of  Lord  Grey  ;  here  is  the  husband  of  his  niece  ;  here  is 
a  Lord  of  the  Treasury  immediately  under  himself  in  his 
own  department ;  here  is  the  h'eir  of  his  father,  who  has  a 


1st  October,  1831.  93 

great  estate.  Now,  if  Lord  Grey  thought  this  man  inno- 
cent of  this  charge,  do  you  believe  that  he  would  refuse  him 
the  only  means  that  there  are  in  the  world  of  proving  that 
innocence?  I  desire  you,  reader,  once  more  to  look  at  all 
the  circumstances;  once  more  to  look  at  the  nature  of  the 
charge  which  Mrs.  Deacle  prefers  ;  once  more  to  see  what 
danger,  not  only  from  present  unpopularity,  but  from  lasting 
impression,  this  young  man  is  exposed  to  from  this  charge 
remaining  disproved  ;  once  more,  then,  put  yourself  in  the 
place  of  Lord  Grey,  and  consider  him  to  be  a  man  of 
sound  judgment  and  of  great  experience,  feeling  most 
acutely,  as  he  must,  the  doubts  which  this  affair  is  exciting 
with  regard  to  the  motives  and  character  of  his  ministry ; 
knowing,  as  he  must,  the  uneasiness,  the  troubles,  the  cease- 
less anxieties  that  it  is  causing  in  the  several  families  of  the 
Bartnss,  in  his  brother's  family  and  his  own  family  too; 
knowing,  as  he  must,  that  the  eyes  of  the  whole  nation  are 
upon  him,  watching  his  conduct  as  to  this  affair;  and  well 
knowing,  as  he  must,  that  a  committee  which  would  prove 
the  innocence  of  the  Barings,  would,  in  one  single  day, 
scatter  all  these  troubles  to  the  winds  :  put  yourself  in  his 
place,  reader,  and  then  say  whether  you  believe,  that,  if  he 
was  convinced  that  the  Barings  were  innocent,  he  would 
refuse  this  committee. 

At  any  rate,  and  at  all  events,  until  the  committee  be 
granted,  you  have  a  ready  answer  to  every  one  who  attempts 
to  bespeak  your  vote  for  a  Baring.  You  cannot  give  the 
vote  until  the  charge  be  removed  ;  if  these  Ministers  will  not 
consent  to  suffer  it  to  be  removed  ;  if  the  honourable  friends 
of  the  Barings  will  not  suffer  their  innocence  to  be  made 
appear,  they  must  wait  with  patience  till  their  enemies  get 
into  Parliament,  when  that  which  friendship  will  not  grant 
enmity  probably  may ! 


94       Two-penny  Trash  3  1st  October,  1831. 

Here  the  case  stops  at  present;  but  here  it  cannot  stop 
long.  The  people  will  continue  to  petition.  New  petitions 
will  come,  and  those  who  have  already  petitioned,  will  pe- 
tition again.  Every  petition  gives  the  thing  a  stir  up  ;  and, 
at  last,  W'e  shall  get  justice.  If  justice  acquit  the  magis- 
trates, if  justice  declare  Mr.  and  Mr.  Deacle  culpable  and 
the  Barings  and  Long  innocent,  then  we  shall  be  satis- 
fied ;  then  we  shall  not  think  ourselves  in  jeopardy ;  then 
we  shall  know  that  an  innocent  woman  has  not  been  hand- 
cuffed and  jolted  in  a  cart  and  crammed  into  a  jail ;  and 
then  vce  shall  have  the  satisfaction  to  know  that  Beckett 
did  not  call  Barnes  out  of  the  dock  to  Long,  who  w-as  a 
grand-juryman  at  the  same  time ;  but,  unless  there  be 
a  committee;  unless  the  honourable  friends  of  the  Barings 
will  grant  them  a  committee  to  prove  their  innocence,  while 
the  other  parties  are  praying  for  it  too,  it  would  be  to  pro- 
claim ourselves  to  the  world  as  brute  beasts,  to  entertain  any 
doubt  at  all  upon  the  matter,  or  to  act  upon  any  other  ground 
than  that  of  the  allegations  as  they  lie  before  us. 

I  am,  my  Friends  and  Countrym.en, 

Your  faithful  and  most  obedient  Servant, 

Wm.  COBBETT. 


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COBBETT'S  POOR  MAN'S  FRIEND  (PviceSd.);  or,  a  De- 
fence  of  the  Risrhts  of  those  who  do  the  Work  and  fifcht  the  Battles. 
— ^I'his  is  \r\y  favourite  work.  1  bestowed  more  labour  upon  it  than 
upon  any  large  volume  that  I  ever  wrote. 

COBBETT'S  E^^GRANT'S  GUIDE  (25.  6^.) ;  in  Ten  Letters, 
addressed  to  the  Taxpayers  of  England. 

COBBETT'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  PROTESTANT  REFOR- 
MATION in  England  and  Ireland  (Price  4s.  6d.)  ;  showing  how 
that  Event  has  impoverished  and  degraded  the  main  Body  of  the 
People  in  those  Countries:  PART  J  I.  (Price  Ss.  6d.)  ;  contain- 
ing a  List  of  the  Abbeys,  Priories,  Nunneries,  Hospitals,  and  other 
Religious  Foundations,  in  England  and  Wales,  and  in  Ireland, 
confiscated,  seized  on,  or  alienated,  by  the  Protestant  ''Reforma- 
tion," Sovereigns,  and  Parliaments. 

COBBETT'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  REGENCY  AND  REIGN 
OF  GEORGE  IV.— This  work  is  published  in  Nos.  at  Gd.  each,  and 
shall  do  justice  to  the  late  *'  7nild  and  mercifuV  King. 

LAFAYETTE'S  LIFE  (Price  \s,)  A  brief  Account  of  the  Life 
of  that  brave  and  honest  man,  translated  from  the  French,  by  Mr. 
James  Cobbett. 

MR.  JOHN  COBBETT'S  LETTERS  FROM  FRANCE  (Price 
45.  6</.) 

MR.  JAMES  COBBETT'S  RIDE  OF  EIGHT  HUNDRED 
MILES  IN  FRANCE  (the  Third  Edition,  Price  2s.  U.) 

MR.  JAMES  COBBETT'S  TOUR  IN  ITALY,  and  also  in  Part 
of  FRANCE  and  SWITZERLAND  (Price  ^s.U.) 

COBBETT'S  TRANSLATION  OF  MARTENS'S  LAW  OF 
NATIONS  (Price  175.)  ;  being  the  Science  of  National  Law, 
Covenants,  Power,  &c.  Founded  upon  the  Treaties  and  Customs 
of  Modern  Nations  in  Europe. 

MR.  WM.  COBBETT'S  LAW  OF  TURNPIKES   (Price  3s.  6(f.) 
[Priuied  by  Wm.  Cobbelt,  Jolinsoii's-court,  Fieet-streel.] 


No.  5.  Vol.  II. 


COBBETT'S 
TWO-PENNY  TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  November^  1831, 


Published  7no.    '  li/,  sold  at  i2s.  Od,  a  hundred ,  and  for  300,  taken  at 

once,  lis. 


TO   THE 

WORKING  PEOPLE, 

ON   THE   SCFIEME    FOR   WITHHOLDING   THE 

TEN-POUND  SUFFRAGE  IN  GREAT  TOWNS. 


TVinchesieVy  27 ih  Octoher,  1831. 

My  FRIE^^Ds, 

You,  who  do  all  the  bodily  labour,  who  make  to>x:ome 
all  the  food,  all  the  drink,  all  the  clothing,  all  the  houses, 
all  the  horses  and  carriages ;  you,  without  w^hoae  help  those 
who  do  not  work  would  be  starved  to  death,  or  would  die 
with  cold ;  you,  w'ho  are  at  once  the  only  source  of  the 
country's  wealth,  and  the  only  means  of  its  security ;  to  you 
I  now  address  myself  on  the  subject  of  the  Reform  Bill, 
and  especially  *on  that  part  of  it  which  relates  to  the  Ten- 
PouND  Voters.  Since  the  Bill  was  rejected  by  the 
Peers,  or,  rather  by  the  Bishops,  the  disputes  on  the  sub- 
ject have  chiefly  turned   on  the  intention  of  the  ministers 

with  regard  to  the  next  bill :  first,  with  regard  to  the  time 

— — ■ .  ■■    ■  ■  ■  ■ .       ■  I  ■ . — ■ .,.  .,..■ .,  - -         ■  ■  ■  ""■       .■— 

London  ;  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street  j 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 

F 


98  Two-penny  Trash; 

of  proposing  it;  next,  with  regard  to  the  mecms  of  carry ^ 
ing  it;  but  with  me,  the  main  consideration  has  been,  the 
'provisions  of  the  next  bill.  The  ministers  confess,  that  it 
is  not  to  be  the  same  bill  j  but  they  say  that  it  shall  be 
one  *'  quite  as  efficient;''  though  they,  all  the  while,  take 
special  care  not  to  tell  us  what  it  is  to  be  !  I,  therefore,  da 
not  confide  in  them,  and  I  am  persuaded  that  all  those 
persons  who  have  been  expressing  confidence  in  them,  will 
£nd  that  they  have  been  the  sport  of  those  who  have,  in  a 
Tery  crafty  manner,  been  urging  them  on  to  adopt  addresses 
containing  such  expressions,  at  the  moment  when  the  minis- 
ters themselves  say,  that  there  are  to  be  '*  alterations  ''  in 
that  Bill  (by  which  Bill  they  said  they  would  stand  or 
fall),  and  when  they  will  not  tell  us  what  those  alter a^ 
iions  are  to  be  ! 

The  slang  of  the  day  is,  that  it  is  to  be  a  Bill  *'  quite  as 
efficient "  as  the  last.  But  here  is  a  phrase,  here  are  three 
■words,  about  the  meaning  of  which,  as  applied  here,  whole 
volumes  may  be  written,  and  with  a  fair  show  of  sound  ar* 
gument  on  both  sides.  They  say,  however,  that  there  are 
to  be  "  alterations ;''  and,  as  they  will  not  tell  us  what  those 
are  to  be,  we  have,  in  the  first  place,  a  right  to  presume 
that  they  will  make  the  Bill  less  consonant  with  the  rights 
and  wishes  of  the  people.  This  w^e  have,  at  the  yexj  least, 
a  clear  right  to  presume ;  and,  then,  we  are  at  perfect  liberty 
to  guess  at  the  intended  alterations,  and  to  offer,  beforehand, 
our  objections  to  them.  This  is  what  I  am  now  about  to  do 
-with  reo^ard  to  one  of  what  I  believe  to  be  the  intended 
alterations;  namely,  the  raising  of  the  sum  of  rent,  re- 
quired as  a  qualification  for  voting,  in  large  toiuns,  I 
believe,  that  there  will  be  many  alterations  in  the  Bill, 
every  one  tending  to  abridge  the  benefits  which  the  people 
would  have  derived  from  the  late  Bill ;  but  I  shall  at 
present  confine  myself  to  this  one  alteration  ;  the  nature 


1st  November,  1831.  99 

and  tendency  of  which,  I  ought,  however,  clearly  to  ex- 
plain before  I  proceed  to  show  how  unjust,  how  insolent, 
how  foolish,  and  how  dreadfully  mischievous,  such  an  alter- 
ation would  be. 

The  Bill,  which  the  Bishops  have  caused  to  be  rejected, 
provides,  that  in  all  cities  and  towns,  w^hich  are,  in  future, 
to  send  members  to  parliament,  every  man,  who  pays  a  rent 
of  ten  pounds  a  year,  shall  have  a  vote ;  and,  as  the  rents 
in  great  towns  are  high,  this  would  give  votes  to  great 
numbers  of  persons ;  and  would,  of  course,  give  to  the 
working  people  some  share  in  the  choosing  of  members  of 
parliament ;  and  this  I  believe  to  be  the  main  thing,  or 
one  of  the  main  things,  that  it  is  now  intended  to  alter,  so 
as  to  make  the  yearly  rent  in  great  towns  higher  than  ten 
pounds  ;  and  thereby  to  cause  the  voters  to  be  four-fifths,  if 
not  nine-tenths,  less  in  number ;  and  by  that  means  give 
the  working  people  no  share  at  all  in  the  choosing  of  those 
who  are  to  make  the  laws  affecting  their  liberties  and  lives  ! 
The  pretence  for  doing  this  is,  that  it  is  7iot  fair  to  give 
a  vote  to  a  ten-pound  renter  in  a  great  town  when  you 
give  no  more  than  a  vote  to  a  ten-pound  renter  in  a 
small  town,  where  rents  are  not  half  so  high,  and  where 
no  working  man  pays  a  rent  of  ten  pounds.  *'  Not  fairl'^ 
Why,  then,  to  make  it  fair,  give  votes  to  five-pound  renters 
in  small  towns !  That  is  the  way  to  make  it  fair,  unless 
you  have  the  impudence  and  the  folly  to  declare  openly 
that  you  mean,  by  hook  or  by  crook,  to  EXCLUDE 
THE  WORKING  PEOPLE  ALTOGETHER,  and  even 
every  parent,  relation,  or  friend  of  the  w^orking  people  ! 
Declare  this  openly  at  once,  and  then  the  working  people 
will  know  how  they  stand,  and  what  they  ought  to  do;  but, 
do  not  attempt  to  deceive  them  by  false  pretences  about 
*^  fair-play  /"  The  Bill  that  has  been  rejected,  effectually 
shuts  all  the  working  class  out  of  the  voting  in  counties  and 

F   2 


100  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

ifi  small  towns.  In  the  choosing  of  seven  members  out  of 
eighty  they  would  have  no  share  at  all,  even  according  to 
the  rejected  Bill,  w^hich  w^as  sufficiently  bad  m  that  re- 
sjpect ;  but  if  the  alteration  that  I  am  speaking  of  be  made, 
it  will  shut  them  out  altogether,  and  they  will  enjoy  no  more 
of  political  rights  than  the  slaves  in  Virginia  or  Jamaica 
enjoy. 

But  do  I  believe,  can  I  believe,  that  such  a  monstrous 
scheme  is  on  foot,  and  that  such  an  alteration  is  intended  ? 
I  can  believe  it :  I  do  believe  it :  and,  it  is  because  I  do 
believe  it  that  I  condemn,  in  any  one  and  in  every  one,  all 
expression  of  confidence  in  the  Ministers.  But  why  do  I 
believe  it  ?  That  is  well  asked  ;  and  I  will  frankly  answer. 
In  the  FIRST  place,  the  ten-pound  suffrage  was  the  most 
weighty  objection,  the  thing  most  hiiiexly  complained  of  ,  by 
all  the  Lords  who  opposed  the  Bill:  secondly,  this  part 
of  the  Bill  was  7iot  defended  by  any  of  the  Ministers  :  and, 
THIRDLY,  the  Lord  Chancellor,  who  spoke  at  nearly 
the  close  of  the  debate,  clearly,  to  the  best  of  my  compre- 
hension, expressed  himself  ready  to  make  alterations  in 
this  part  of  the  bill ;  and,  of  course,  those  alterations  w^ere 
to  have  been  such  as  to  remove  the  ground  of  the  objeC' 
tions  of  the  opposing  liOrds ;  that  is  to  say,  such  as  to  raise 
the  standard  of  the  suffrage  in  all  the  great  towns.  This  is 
a  matter  of  vast  importance  :  it  is  a  vital  matter :  it  is  the 
all  in  all  of  the  Bill,  because  it  is  her(?,  and  here  only,  that 
it  holds  out  anything  like  hope  to  the  millions  :  and,  there- 
fore, let  us  have,  here,  the  very  words  of  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  speech  (8th  Oct.)  he  said,  "  I  have 
'*  listened  w^th  profound  attention  to  the  debate,  of  which 
"  this,  I  believe,  will  be  the  last  night,  and  which \has  al- 
**  ready  occupied  five  days,  and  having  heard  a  vast  variety 
**  of  objections,  having  weighed  the  arguments  on  both  sides, 


1st  November,  1831,  101 

"  and  careless  whether  I  give  offence  in  any  quarter,  I 
"  must  say,  that  I  am  so  far  moved  by  some  points  urged 
'^  as  to  be  ready  to  reconsider  some  matters  upon  lohich  I 
"  had  deemed  that  wy  mind  was  sufficiently  made  up^ 
After  an  hour  or  two  of  very  unmeaning  stuff,  he  came  to 
this:^^  In  London  and  the  great  towns,  in  the  Tower  Ham- 
"  lets,  in  Lambeth,  and  the  like,  ten  pounds  is  a  low  quali- 
^^ Jication ;  but  iu  other  places  it  is  not.  TWENTY 
''  POUNDS  was  ORIGINALLY  DESTINED  for  the 
^'  qualification  ;  bdt,  upon  inquiry  into  the  circumstances  of 
"  the  small  towns,  we  were  induced  to  abandon  it.  But  if 
"  noble  Lords,  speaking  upon  the  question  in  general,  choose 
*'  to  object  to  this  qualification  that  it  is  uniform,  and  say 
^'  that  it  ought  to  be  different  in  divers  places — lower  in  the 
"  smaller  towns,  and  higher  in  the  larger — I  will  not  say 
*'  that  I  agree  with  them  ;  I  w'ill  not  say  what  was  originally 
"  my  opinion — I  will  not  tell  the  reasons  that  now  recom- 
*^  mend  the  bilL  as  it  stands,  to  my  support ;  but  I  will  say 
"  that  whoever  holds  that  doctrine  will  find  7ne  ready  to  se- 
''  cure  for  him  the  most  ample — the  most  scrutinizing — the 
^*  most  candid  discussion  of  the  subject  in  the  Committee. 
**  I  speak  as  an  individual ;  candour  compels  me  to  say 
"  thus  much.  But  I,  at  tbe  same  time,  say  that  it  is  em^ 
*'  phatically  a  subject  for  the  Committee.'^ 

Now,  mark  ;  I,  in  commenting  on  these  passages,  said, 
that  they  showed  two  things ;  first,  that  Brougham  meaned, 
by  his  declared  carelessness  about  ivhoni  he  might  offend, 
to  indicate  his  readiness  to  abandon  Lord  Grey  ;  and  next, 
that  Brougham  was  ready  to  give  up  the  ten-pound  suf- 
frage, Mark,  I  say  !  Mark,  that  he  has  most  stoutly  and 
vehemently  disclaimed  all  intention  to  quit  Lord  Grey ;  but  he 
has  not  said  a  word,  nor  has  Lord  Grey  said  a  word,  in  the 
way  of  disclaiming  the  intention  to  give  up  the  ten-pound 
suffrage!  Pray  mark  that !  Observe,  besides,  that  twenty 
pounds  was,  at  first,   intended.     Ay,   my  friends,  and  it 


102  '       Two-PENXY  Trash; 

was,  at  first,  intended  not  to  disfranchise  any  one  rotten 
borough  ;  but,  merely  to  take  one  memher  from  each  of  the 
very  rottenest  of  them,  open  the  voting  to  the  hundreds  around 
them  all,  make  them  all  still  more  rotten  than  they  are,  and 
to  give  members  to  a  few  great  towns  with  a  twenty-pound 
suffrage  !  That^  I  say,  was  their ^rs^  BilL  If  that  be 
not  true,  let  the  Courier  deny  it,  and  tell  us  how  the  first 
Bill  differed,  substantially^  from  what  I  have  here  described. 

Such  are  my  reasons  for  believing  that  the  intention  of 
the  Ministers  is  to  take  the  ten-pound  suffrage  from  the 
great  towns,  and  thus  to  shut  out  from  all  share  in  the 
pow^r  of  choosing  members  of  Parliament  every  man  of 
those  working  millions,  about  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  whom 
the  leaders  at  Birmingham  are  causing  to  shout  for  con- 
fdence  in  these  very  Blinisters,  and  which  shout,  and  the 
like  shouts,  for  confidence  in  them,  will,  if  anything  can, 
enable  these  Ministers  to  carry  their  intention  into  effect! 

Let  us  now  look  at  the  injustice,  the  insolence,  and  the 
folly  of  the  thing  intended.  For  the  people,  for  the  work- 
ing people,  to  have  consented  to  give  a  trial  to  the  rejected 
Bill,  w^as  showing  unp?iT3Me\ed  forbearance,  was  making  an 
enormous  sacrifice  of  clear  right  for  the  sake  of  peace  ;  no 
right,  not  even  that  of  enjoying  life  and  limb,  being  clearer 
than  the  right  of  every  man  of  sane  mind,  and  unstained  by 
indelible  crime,  to  have  a  voice  in  the  choosing  of  those  w^ho 
are  to  make  the  laws  affecting  his  liberty  and  life.  Let  me, 
however,  upon  this  occasion,  throw  down  the  gauntlet  to 
our  foes ;  let  me  -prove  the  right ;  and,  when  I  have  done 
that,  let  those  who  have  the  audacity  to  call  the  ten-pound 
suffrage'^  a  boon'^  which  they  have  a  right  to  withhold, 
again  call  upon  the  nation  for  '*  confidence.''  This  right  is 
the  great  and  important  matter  ;  and,  therefore,  my  friends, 
lend  me  your  patient  attention,  while  I  go  to  the  very 
foundation  of  it,  and  show  that  it  is  built  upon  the  rock  of 
reason  and  of  justice  ;  that  it  is  founded  in  the  law  of  nature 


1st  November,  1831.  103 

itself;  that  it  belongs  to  man  as  completely  as  does  his  right 
to  eat  or  to  breathe.  Attend  patiently,  my  friends,  while  I 
prove  this ;  and,  when  I  have  done  that,  let  us,  if  we  be 
able,  express  suitable  scorn  at  those  who  are  bawling  for 
"  covfidence  "  in  men,  who  will  not  tell  us  that  they  do 
not  intend  to  withhold  the  jjitifuL  portion  of  this  right 
which  the  ten-pound  suffrage  would  restore  to  you. 

Time  was  when  all  the  inhabitants  of  this  island  laid 
claim  to  all  things  in  it,  without  the  words  owner  or  pro- 
perty being  known.  God  had  given  to  all  the  people  all  the 
land  and  all  the  trees,  and  everything  else,  just  as  he  has 
given  the  burrows  and  the  grass  to  the  rabbits,  and  the 
bushes  and  the  berries  to  the  birds ;  and  each  man  had  the 
good  things  of  this  world  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  in  pro- 
portion to  his  skill,  his  strength,  and  his  valour.  This  is 
what  is  called  living  under  the  Law  of  Nature  ;  that  is 
to  say,  the  law  of  self-preservation  and  self-enjoyment, 
without  any  restraint  imposed  by  a  regard  for  the  good  of 
our  neighbours. 

In  process  of  time,  no  matter  from  what  cause,  men 
made  amongst  themselves  a  compact,  or  an  agreement,  to 
divide  the  land  and  its  products  in  such  manner  that  each 
should  have  a  share  to  his  own  exclusive  use^  and  that  each 
man  should  be  protected  in  the  exclusive  enjoyment  of  his 
share  by  the  united  power  of  the  rest ;  and,  in  order  to 
ensure  the  due  and  certain  application  of  this  united  power, 
the  whole  of  the  people  agreed  to  be  bound  by  regulations, 
called  Laws.  Thus  arose  civil  society ;  thus  2iTose property  ; 
thus  arose  the  words  mine  and  thine.  One  man  became 
possessed  of  more  good  things  than  another,  because  he  was 
more  industrious,  more  skilful,  or  more  frugal :  so  that 
labour,  of  one  sort  or  another,  was  the  foundation  of 
all  property. 


104  Two-penny  Trash  5 

In  what  manner  civil  societies  proceeded  in  providing  for 
tlie  making  of  laws  and  for  the  enforcing  of  them;  the 
various  ways  in  which  they  took  measures  to  protect  the 
"weak  against  the  strong  ;  how  they  have  gone  to  work  to 
secure  w^ealth  against  the  attacks  of  poverty ;  these  are  sub- 
jects that  it  would  require  volumes  to  detail:  but  these  truths 
are  written  on  the  heart  of  man ;  namely,  that  all  men  are, 
by  nature,  equal;  that  civil  society  can  never  have  arisen 
from  any  motive  other  than  that  of  the  benefit  of  the  whole  ; 
that,  whenever  civil  society  makes  the  greater  part  of  the 
people  ivorse  off  than  they  were  under  the  Law  of  Nature, 
the  civil  compact  is,  in  conscience,  dissolved,  and  all  the 
rights  of  nature  return ;  that,  in  civil  society,  the  rights 
and  the  duties  go  hand  in  hand,  and  that  when  the  former 
are  taken  away,  the  latter  cease  to  exist. 

Now,  then,  in  order  to  act  well  our  part,  as  citizens,  or 
members  of  the  community,  we  ought  clearly  to  understand 
what  our  rights  are ;  for,  on  our  enjoyment  of  these  de* 
pend  our  duties,  rights  going  before  duties,  as  value  re- 
ceived goes  before  payment.  I  know  well,  that  just  the 
contrary  of  this  is  taught  by  those  w^ho  fatten  on  our  toil; 
for  they  tell  us,  that  our  first  duty  is  to  obey  the  laws  ; 
and  it  is  not  many  years  ago  that  Ho  us  ley,  bishop 
of  Rochester,  told  us,  that  the  people  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  laws  but  to  obey  them.  The  truth  is,  however, 
that  the  citizen's^rs^  duty  is  to  maintain  his  rights^  as  it  is 
the  purchaser's  first  duty  to  receive  the  thing  for  which  he 
has  contracted. 

Our  rights  in  society  are  numerous  ;  the  right  of  enjoying 
life  and  property ;  the  right  of  exerting  our  physical  and 
mental  powers  in  an  innocent  manner ;  but  the  great  right 
of  all,  and  without  which  there  is,  in  fact,  no  right,  is,  the 
right  of  taking  a  part  in  the  making  of  the  laws  by  which 


1st  November,  1831.  105 

we  are  governed.  This  right  is  founded  in  that  law  of 
Nature  spoken  of  above  ;  it  springs  out  of  the  very  principle 
of  civil  society ;  for  what  compact ,  what  Agreement,  what 
common  asseiit,  can  possibly  be  imagined  by  which  men 
would  give  up  all  the  rights  of  nature,  all  the  free  enjo}*^- 
ment  of  their  bodies  and  their  minds,  in  order  to  subject 
themselves  to  rules  and  laws,  in  the  making  of  which  they 
should  have  nothing  to  say,  and  which  should  be  enforced 
upon  them  without  their  assent  ?  The  great  right,  there- 
fore, of  every  man,  the  right  of  rights,  is  the  right  of  hav- 
ing a  share  in  the  making  of  the  laws,  to  which  the  good  of 
the  whole  makes  it  his  duty  to  submit. 

With  regard  to  the  means  of  enabling  every  man  to  enjoy 
this  share,  they  have  been  different,  in  diiferent  countries, 
and,  in  the  same  countries,   at  different  times.     Generally 
it  has  been,  and  in  great  communities  it  must  be^  by  the 
choosing  of  a  few^  to  speak  and  act  in  behalf  of  the  many  : 
and,  as  there  will  hardly  ever  hQ  'perfect  unanimity  amongst 
men  assembled  for  any  purpose   whatev^er,   ^vhere  fact  and 
argument  are  to  decide  the  question,  the  decision  is  left  to 
the  majority^  the  compact  being  that  the  decision  of  the 
majority  shall  be  that  of  the  whole.     Minors  are  excluded 
from  this  right,  because  the  law  considers  them  as  infants, 
because  it  makes  the  parent  answerable  for  civil  damages 
committed  by  them,  and  because  of  their  legal  incapacity  to 
make  any  compact.     Women  are  excluded  because  husbands 
are  answerable  in  law  for  their  wives,   as    to   their  civil 
damages,  and  because  the  very  nature  of  their  sex  makes 
the  exercise  of  this  right  incompatible  with  the  harmony  and 
happiness  of  society.     Men  stained  with  indelible  crimes 
are  excluded,  because   they  have  forfeited  their   right  by 
riolating  the  laws  to  which  their  assent   has  been  given* 
Insane  persons  are  excluded,  because  they  are  dead  in  the 
eje  of  the  law,  because  the  law  demands  no  duty  at  their 

F   5 


106  Two-penny  Trash; 

hands,  because  they  cannot  violate  the  law,  because  the  law 
cannot  affect  them ;  and,  therefore,  they  ought  to  have  no 
hand  in  making  it. 

But,  with  these  exceptions,  where  is  the  ground  whereon 
to  maintain  that  any  man  ought  to  be  deprived  of  this  right, 
which  he  derives  directly  from  the  law  of  Nature,  and  which 
springs,  as  I  said  before,  out  of  the  same  source  with  civil 
society  itself?     Am  I  told,  that  property  ought  to  confer 
this  right  ?     Property  sprang  from  labour,  and  not  labour 
from  property ;  so  that  if  there  were  to  be  a  distinction  here, 
it  ought  to  give  the  preference  to  labour.     All  men  are  equal 
by  nature  ;  nobody  denies  that  they  all  ought  to  be  equal  in 
the  eye  of  the  laio :  but  how  are  they  to  be  thus  equal,  if  the 
law  begin  by  suffering  some  to  enjoy  this  right  and  refusing 
the  enjoyment  to  others  ?     It  is  the  duty  of  every  man  to 
defend  his  country  against  an  enemy,  a  duty  imposed  by  the 
law  of  nature  as  well  as   by  that  of  civil  society,   and 
without  the  recognition  of  this  duty,  there  could  exist  no 
independent  nation  and  no  civil  society.     Yet,  how  are  you 
to  maintain  that  this  is  the  duty  of  every  many  if  you  deny 
to  some  men  the  enjoyment  of  a  share  in  making  the  laws  ? 
Upon  what  principle  are  you  to  contend  for  equality  here, 
while  you  deny  its  existence  as  to  the  right  of  sharing  in 
the  making  of  the  laws  ?     The  poor  man  has  a  body  and  a 
soul  as  well  as  the  rich  man  ;  like  the  latter,  he  has  parents, 
wife  and  children  ;  a  bullet  or  a  sword  is  as  deadly  to  him 
as  to  the  rich  man ;  there  are  hearts  to  ache   and  tears  to 
flow  for  him  as  well  as  for  the  squire  or  the  lord  or  the  loan- 
monger  :  yet,  notwithstanding  this  equality,  he  is  to  risk  all, 
and,  if  he  escape,  he  is  still  to  be  denied  an  equality  of 
rights !     If,  in  such  a  state  of  things,  the  artisan  or  la- 
bourer, when  called  out  to  fight  in  defence  of  his  country, 
were  to  answer :  "  Why  should  I  risk  my  life  ?  I  have  no 
"  possession  but  my  labour ;  no  enemy  will  take  that  from 


1st  November,  1831.  107 

*^  me;  you,  the  rich,  possess  all  the  land  and  all  its  pro- 
**  ducts ;  you  make  what  laws  you  please  without  my  parti- 
"  cipation  or  assent ;  you  punish  me  at  your  pleasure ;  you 
*^  say  that  my  want  of  property  excludes  me  from  the  right 
^*  of  having  a  share  in  the  making  of  the  laws  5  you  say 
**  that  the  property  that  I  have  in  my  labour  is  nothing 
**  worth  ;  on  what  ground,  then,  do  you  <^all  on  me  to  risk 
"  my  life  ?  "  If,  in  such  a  case,  such  questions  were  put, 
the  answer  is  very  difficult  to  be  imagined. 

In  cases  oi  civil  commotion  the  matter  comes  still  more 
home  to  us.  On  what  ground  is  the  rich  man  to  call  the 
artisan  from  his  shop  or  the  labourer  from  the  field  to  join 
the  sheriffs  posse  or  militia,  if  he  refuse  to  the  labourer  and 
artisan  the  right  of  sharing  in  the  making  of  the  laws  ? 
Why  are  they  to  risk  their  lives  here  ?  To  uphold  the 
laws,  and  to  protect  property?  What  1  laws,  in  the  mak- 
ing of,  or  assenting  to,  w^hich,  they  have  been  allowed  to 
have  no  share  ?  Property ^  of  which  they  are  said  to  pos- 
sess none  ?  What !  compel  men  to  come  forth  and  risk 
their  lives  for  the  protection  of  property  ;  and  then,  in  the 
same  breath,  tell  them,  that  they  are  not  allowed  to  share 
in  the  making  of  the  laws,  because,  and  ONLY  BECAUSE, 
they  have  no  property  I  Not  because  they  have  commit- 
ted any  crime  ;  not  because  they  are  idle  or  profligate;  not 
because  they  are  vicious  in  any  way ;  but  solely  because 
they  have  no  property ;  and  yet  at  the  same  time  compel 
them  to  come  forth  and  risk  their  lives  for  the  protection 
of  property  ! 

But,  the  PAUPERS?  Ought  they  to  share  in  the  making 
of  the  laws  ?  And  why  not  ?  What  is  a  pauper ;  w^hat  is 
one  of  the  men  to  whom  this  degrading  appellation  is  ap- 
plied? A  very  poor  man  ;  a  man  who  is,  from  some  cause 
or  other,  unable  to  supply  himself  with  food  and  raiment 
without  aid  from  the  parish-rates.      And  is  that  circum- 


108  Two-PEMNY  Trash; 

stance  alone  to  deprive  him  of  Lis  right,  a  right  of  which  he 
stands  more  in  need  than  any  other  man  ?  Perhaps  he  has, 
for  many  years  of  his  life,  contributed  directly  to  those  rates, 
and  ten  thousand  to  one  he  has,  by  his  labour,  contributed 
to  them  indirectly.  The  aid  which,  under  such  circum- 
stances, he  receives,  is  his  right ;  he  receives  it  not  as 
an  alms  I  he  is  no  mendicant ;  he  begs  not;  he  comes  to 
receive  that  which  the  law  of  the  country  awards  him  in 
lieu  of  the  larger  portion  assigned  him  by  the  laiv  of  nature. 
Is  it,  then,  consistent  with  justice,  with  humanity,  with 
reason,  to  deprive  a  man  of  the  most  precious  of  his  political 
rights,  because,  and  only  because,  he  has  been,  in  a  pecu- 
niary way,  singularly  unfortunate  ?  The  Scripture  says, 
*'  Despise  not  the  poor,  because  he  is  poor ;''  tjiat  is  to  say, 
despise  him  not  on  account  of  his  poverty.  Why  then 
deprive  him  of  his  right ;  why  put  him  out  of  the  pale  of  the 
law  on  account  of  his  poverty  ?  There  are  some  men,  to  be 
sure,  Vv'ho  are  reduced  to  poverty  by  their  vices,  by  idleness, 
by  gaming,  by  drinking,  by  squandering;  but  the  far  greater 
part  by  bodily  ailments,  by  misfortunes,  to  the  effects  of  which 
all  men  may,  without  any  fault,  and  even  without  any  folly, 
be  exposed  :  and  is  there  a  man  on  earth  so  cruelly  unjust 
as  to  wish  to  add  to  the  sufferings  of  such  persons  by  strip- 
ping them  of  their  political  rights  ?  How  many  thousands  of 
industrious  and  virtuous  men  have,  within  these  few  years, 
been  brought  down  from  a  state  of  competence  to  that  of 
pauperism  !  And  is  it  just  to  strip  such  men  of  their  rights, 
merely  because  they  are  thus  brought  down  ?  When  I  was 
at  Ely,  in  th'e  spring  of  last  year,  there  were,  in  that  neigh- 
bourhood, three  paupers  cracking  stones  on  the  roads,  who 
had  all  three  been,  not  only  rate-payers,  but  overseers  of  the 
poor,  within  seven  years  of  the  day  when  I  was  there.  Is 
there  any  man  so  barbarous  as  to  say,  that  these  men  ought, 
merely  on  account  of  their  misfortunes,  to  be  deprived  of 


1st  November,  1831.  109 

their  political  rights  ?  Their  right  to  receive  relief  is  as  per- 
fect as  any  right  of  property  ;  and  would  you,  merely  be- 
cause they  claim  this  right,  strip  them  of  another  right  ? 
To  say  no  more  of  the  injustice  and  the  cruelty,  is  there 
reason,  is  there  common  sense,  in  this  ?  What !  if  a  farmer 
or  tradesman  be,  by  flood  or  by  fire,  so  totally  ruined  as  to 
be  compelled,  surrounded  by  his  family,  to  resort  to  the 
parish-book,  would  you  break  the  last  heart-string  of  such  a 
man  by  making  him  feel  the  degrading  loss  of  his  political 
rights  ? 

Here,  here  is  the  point,  on  which  we  are  to  take  our 
stand.  There  are  always  men  enough  to  plead  the  cause 
of  the  rich ;  enough  and  enough  to  echo  the  woes  of  the  fal- 
len great ;  but,  be  it  our  part  to  show  compassion  for,  and 
maintain  the  rights  of,  those  who  labour.  Poverty  is  not  a 
crime,  and,  though  it  sometimes  arises  from  faults,  it  is  no>t, 
even  in  that  case,  to  be  visited  by  punishment  beyond  that 
which  it  brings  with  itself.  Remember,  that  poverty  is  de- 
creed by  the  very  nature  of  man.  The  Scripture  says,  that 
*^  the  poor  shall  never  cease  from  out  of  the  lami  ;^'  that  is 
to  say,  that  there  shall  always  be  some  very  poor  people. 
This  is  inevitable  from  the  very  nature  of  things.  It  is  ne- 
cessary to  the  existence  of  mankind,  that  a  very  large  por- 
tion of  every  people  should  live  by  manual  labour ;  and,  as 
such  labour  is  pain,  more  or  less,  and  as  no  living  creature 
likes  pain,  it  must  be,  that  the  far  greater  part  of  labouring 
people  will  endure  only  just  as  much  of  this  pain  as  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  the  supply  of  their  dazli/  wants.  Expe- 
rience says  that  this  has  always  been,  and  reason  and 
nature  tell  us  that  this  must  always  be.  Therefore,  when 
ailments,  when  losses,  when  untoward  circumstances  of  any 
sort,  stop  or  diminish  the  daily  supply,  7v ant  comes  -,  and 
every  just  government  will  provide,  from  the  general  stock, 
the  means  to  satisfy  this  want.  Vf  -    ■ 


110  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

Nor  IS  the  deepest  poverty  without  its  useful  effects  in 
society.  To  the  practice  of  the  virtues  of  abstinence,  sobriety, 
care,  frugality,  industry,  and  even  honesty  and  amiable 
manners  and  acquirement  of  talent,  the  two  great  motives 
are,  to  get  upwards  in  riches  or  fame,  and  to  avoid  going 
downwards  to  poverty ,  the  last  of  which  is  the  most  power- 
ful of  the  two.  It  is,  therefore,  not  with  contempt,  but  with 
compassion  that  we  should  look  on  those  whose  state  is  one 
of  the  decress  of  nature,  from  w^hose  sad  example  we  profit, 
and  to  whom,  in  return,  we  ought  to  make  compensation  by 
every  indulgent  and  kind  act  in  our  power,  and  particularly 
by  a  defence  of  their  rights.  To  those  who  labour,  we,  who 
labour  not  with  our  hands,  owe  all  that  we  eat,  drink,  and 
wear  ;  all  that  shades  us  by  day  and  that  shelters  us  by 
night ;  all  the  means  of  enjoying  health  and  pleasure ;  and 
therefore,  if  we  possess  talent  for  the  task,  we  are  ungrateful 
or  cowardly,  or  both,  if  we  omit  any  effort  within  our  power 
to  prevent  them  from  being  slaves  ;  and,  disguise  the  matter 
how  we  may,  a  slave,  a  real  slave,  every  man  is,  who  has 
no  share  in  making  the  laws  which  he  is  compelled  to  obey. 
What  is  a  slave  ?  For,  let  us  not  be  amused  by  a  name  ; 
but  look  well  into  the  matter.  A  slave  is,  in  the  first  place, 
a  man  who  has  7io  property  ;  and  property  means  some- 
,  thing  that  he  has,  and  that  nobody  can  take  from  him  with- 
out his  leave,  or  consent.  Whatever  man,  no  matter  what 
he  may  call  himself  or  any-body  else  may  call  him,  can  have 
his  money  or  his  goods  taken  from  him  by  force,  by  virtue 
of  an  order,  or  ordinance,  or  law,  which  he  has  had  no  hand 
in  making,  and  to  which  jie  has  not  given  his  assent,  has 
no  property,  and  is  merely  a  depositary  of  the  goods  of  his 
master.  A  slave  has  no  property  in  his  labour ;  and  any 
man  who  is  compelled  to  give  up  the  fruit  of  his  labour  to 
another,  at  the  arbitrary  will  of  that  other,  has  no  property 
in  his  labour,  and  is,  therefore,  a  slave,  whether  the  fruit 


1st  November,  1831.  Ill 

of  his  labour  be  taken  from  him  directly  or  indirectly.  If  it 
be  said  that  he  gives  up  this  fruit  of  his  labour  by  his  ovva 
will,  and  that  it  is  not  forced  from  him  ;  I  answer,  To  be 
sure  he  may  avoid  eating  and  drinking  and  may  go  naked ; 
but  then  he  must  die ;  and  on  this  condition,  and  this  con- 
dition only,  can  he  refuse  to  give  up  the  fruit  of  his  labour, 
"  Die,  wretch,  or  surrender  as  much  of  your  income,  or  the 
fruit  of  your  labour,  as  your  masters  choose  to  take."  This  is, 
in  fact,  the  language  of  the  rulers  to  every  man  who  is  re- 
fused to  have  a  share  in  the  making  of  the  laws  to  which  he 
is  forced  to  submit. 

But,  some  one  may  say,  slaves  are  private  property,  and 
may  be  bought  and  sold,  out  and  out,  like  cattle.  And, 
what  is  it  to  the  slave,  whether  he  be  the  property  of  one  or 
of  many  ;  or,  what  matters  it  to  him,  whether  he  pass  from 
master  to  master  by  a  sale  for  an  indefinite  term,  or  be  let 
to  hire  by  the  year,  month,  or  w^eek  ?  It  is,  in  no  case,  the 
flesh  and  blood  and  bones  that  are  sold,  but  the  labour ; 
and,  if  you  actually  sell  the  labour  of  man,  is  not  that  man  a 
slave,  though  you  sell  it  for  only  a  short  time  at  once?  And, 
as  to  the  principle,  so  ostentatiously  displayed  in  the  case  of 
the  black  slave-trade,  that  ^*  man  ought  not  to  have  a  pro^ 
petty  in  man^^  it  is  even  an  advantage  to  the  slave  to  be 
private  property,  because  the  owner  has  then  a  clear  and 
powerful  interest  in  the  preservation  of  his  life,  health  and 
strength,  and  will,  therefore,  furnish  him  amply  with  the 
food  and  raiment  necessary  for  this  end.  Every  one 
knows  that  public  property  is  never  so  well  taken  care  of  as 
private  property ;  and  this,  too,  on  the  maxim,  that  "  that 
which  is  every-body's  business  is  nobody's  business/* 
Every  one  know^s  that  a  rented  farm  is  not  so  well  kept  in 
heart,  as  a  farm  in  the  hands  of  the  owner.  And,  as  to 
punishment  and  restraints,  what  difference  is  there,  w^he- 
ther  these  be  inflicted  and  imposed  by  a  private  owner,  or 


112  Two-penny  Trash; 

his  overseer,  or  by  the  agents  and  overseers  of  a  body  of 
proprietors  ?  In  short,  if  j^ou  can  cause  a  man  to  be  impri- 
soned or  whipped  if  he  do  not  work  enough  to  please  you ; 
if  you  can  sell  him  by  auction  for  a  time  limited  ;  if  you  can 
forcibly  separate  him  from  his  wife  to  prevent  their  having 
children ;  if  you  can  shut  him  up  in  his  dwelling  place 
when  you  please,  and  for  as  lon^  a  time  as  you  please  ;  if 
you  can  force  him  to  draw  a  cart  or  w^agon  like  a  beast  of 
draught;  if  you  can,  vfhen  the  humour  seizes  you,  and  at 
the  suggestion  of  your  mere  fears,  or  whim,  cause  him  to  be 
shut  up  in  a  dungeon  during  your  pleasure:  if  you  can,  at 
your  pleasure,  do  these  things  to  him,  is  it  not  to  be  inso- 
lently hypocritical  to  affect  to  call  him  a  free  vian'i  But, 
after  all,  these  may  all  be  wanting,  and  yet  the  man  be  a 
slave,  if  he  be  allowed  to  have  no  propertt/  ;  and,  as  I  have 
shown,  no  property  he  can  have,  not  even  in  that  labour 
which  is  not  only  property,  but  tlie  basis  of  all  other  property, 
unless  he  have  a  share  in  making  the  laws  to  which  he  is 
compelled  to  submit. 

It  is  said,  that  he  may  have  this  share  virtually  though 
not  in  form  and  name-  for  that  his  employers  may 
have  such  share,  and  they  will,  as  a  matter  of  course,  act 
for  him.  This  doctrine,  pushed  home,  would  make  the 
chief  of  the  nation  the  sole  maker  of  the  laws ;  for,  if  the 
rich  can  thus  act  for  the  poor,  why  should  not  the  King  act 
for  the  rich  ?  This  matter  is  very  completely  explained  by 
the  practice  in  the  United  States  of  America.  There 
the  general  rule  is,  that  every  free  man^  with  the  excep- 
tion of  men  stained  with  crime  and  men  insane,  has  a  right 
to  have  a  voice  in  choosing  those  who  make  the  laws.  The 
number  of  representatives  sent  to  the  Congress  is,  in  each 
state,  proportioned  to  the  number  oi  free  people.  But  as 
there  are  slaves  in  some  of  the  states,  these  states  have  a 
certain  portion  of  additional  numbers  on  account  of  those 


1st  November,  1831.  113 

slaves  !  Thus  the  slaves  are  represented  by  their  owners;, 
and  this  is  real^  practical,  open  and  undisguised  virtual 
representation  !  No  doubt  that  white  men  may  be  repre- 
sented in  the  same  way ;  for  the  colour  of  the  skin  is  nothing; 
but  let  them  be  called  slaves,  then  ;  let  it  not  be  pretended 
that  they  are  free  men  ;  let  not  the  word  liberty  be  polluted 
by  being  applied  to  their  state  ;  let  it  be  openly  and  honestly 
avowed,  as  in  America,  that  they  are  slaves  ;  and  then  will 
come  the  question  whether  men  ought  to  exist  in  such  a 
state,  or  whether  they  ought  to  do  every  thing  in  their  power 
to  rescue  themselves  from  it. 

If  the  right  to  have  a  share  in  making  the  laws  were 
merely  a  feather  ;  if  it  were  a  fanciful  thing ;  if  it  were  only 
a  speculative  theory  ;  if  it  were  but  an  abstract  jpriyiciple  ; 
on  any  of  these  suppositions,  it  might  be  considered  as  of 
little  importance.  But  it  is  none  of  these  ;  it  is  a  practical 
matter ;  the  want  of  it  not  only  is,  but  must  of  necessity  be, 
felt  by  every  man  who  lives  under  that  want.  If  it  were 
proposed  to  the  shopkeepers  in  a  town,  that  a  rich  man  or 
two,  living  in  the  neighbourhood,  should  have  power  to  send 
whenever  they  pleased,  and  take  away  as  much  as  they 
pleased  of  the  money  of  the  shopkeepers,  and  apply  it  ta 
what  uses  they  pleased ;  what  an  outcry  the  shopkeepers  would 
make  !  And  yet,  what  would  this  be  more  than  taxes  im- 
posed on  those  who  have  no  voice  in  choosing  the  persons 
who  impose  them  ]  Who  lets  another  man  put  his  hand 
into  his  purse  when  he  pleases  ?  Who  that  has  the  power 
to  help  himself,  surrenders  his  goods  or  his  money  to  the 
will  of  another?  Has  it  not  always  been,  and  must  it  not 
always  be,  true,  that,  if  your  property  be  at  the  absolute 
disposal  of  others,  your  ruin  is  certain  *?  And  if  this  be,  of 
necessity,  the  case  amongst  individuals  and  parts  of  the 
community,  it  must  be  the  case  with  regard  to  the  whole 
community. 


114  Two-penny  Trash; 

Ay,  and  experience  shows  us  that  it  always  has  been  the 
case.  The  natural  and  inevitable  consequences  of  a  want 
of  this  right  in  the  people  have,  in  all  countries,  been  taxes 
pressing  the  industrious  and  laborious  to  the  earth  ;  severe 
laws  and  standing  armies  to  compel  the  people  to  submit  to 
those  taxes;  wealth,  luxury,  and  splendour,  amongst  those 
who  make  the  laws  and  receive  the  taxes  ;  poverty,  misery, 
immorality,  amongst  those  who  bear  the  burdens ;  and,  at 
last,  commotion,  revolt,  revenge,  and  rivers  of  blood.  Such 
have  always  been,  and  such  must  always  be,  the  conse- 
quences of  a  want  of  this  right  of  all  men  to  share  in  the 
making  of  the  laws,  a  right,  as  I  have  before  shown,  derived 
immediately  from  the  law  of  nature,  springing  up  out  of  the 
same  source  with  civil  society,  and  cherished  in  the  heart 
of  man  by  reason  and  by  experience. 

Such  is  the  foundation  of  this  rights  and  such  are  the 
general  consequences  of  a  want  of  the  enjoyment  of  it;  of 
all  which  consequences,  the  last  only  excepted,  we  have 
already  amply  tasted  in  this  country.  If  this  right  had  been 
enjoyed  in  England,  should  we  have  seen  the  families  of  the 
aristocracy  fed  from  the  pension  and  sinecure  lists  ;  that  is 
to  say,  on  the  fruit  of  the  people's  labour  ]  Should  we  have 
seen  men  transported  for  seven  years  for  what  is  called 
poaching  ;  that  is  to  say,  for  taking,  or  attempting  to  take, 
wild  animals,  and  thereby  disturb  the  sports  of  the  rich  ? 
Should  we  have  seen  laws  inflicting  ruin,  and,  contingently^ 
destruction  of  body,  on  the  people,  for  turning  barley  into 
malt,  or  gathering  hops  from  their  hedges  ?  Should  we  have 
seen  old  men,  and  even  women,  harnessed  and  made  to  d^raw 
carts  and  wagons  like  beasts  of  burden  ?  Should  we  have 
seen  a  law  to  hang  a  man  for  striking  another  without  doing 
him  any  bodily  harm?.  Should  we  have  seen  Lords  Guild- 
ford and  Walsingham  (both  of  whom  v^oted  against  the 
Reform  Bill)  with  four  church-livings  each,  while  those 


1st  November,  1831.  115 

who  do  the  duties  of  the  parishes  are  little  better  off  than 
labouring  men  ?  Should  we  have  seen  the  Dean  and  Chap- 
ter of  Ely  taking  away  the  great  tithes  of  the  parish  of 
Lekexheath,  a  Vicar  (who  has  another  living)  taking 
away  the  small  tithes^  w^hile  a  curate  wuth  ten  chil* 
di-en,  has  seventy-Jive  pounds  a  year  allowed  him,  and 
no  house  to  live  in,  and  who  digs,  like  a  common  labourer, 
to  raise  potatoes  as  his  almost  only  food  ?  Should  we  have 
seen  military  and  naval  academies,  for  the  purpose  of  edu- 
cating the  children  of  the  rich,  by  means  of  taxes  raised  on 
the  poor  ?  Should  we  have  seen  the  magistrates  allow,  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  hard-working  man,  not  half  so  much 
as  the  subsistence  of  the  lowest  common  soldier  ?  Should  we 
have  seen  that  soldier  receive  and  send  his  letters  postage^ 
free,  while  the  working  man  is  compelled  to  pay  an  enor- 
mous tax  (besides  the  cost  of  carriage)  on  his  letters  ? 
Should  we  have  seen  any  of  these  things?  Should  we  ever 
have  seen  Pitt's  and  Sid  mouth's  and  Castlereagh's  dungeoning 
and  gagging  Bills?  And  would  our  miserable  fellow-subjects 
in  Ireland  ever  have  seen  laws  to  shut  them  up  in  their 
houses  from  sun-set  to  sun-rise  on  pain  of  transportation? 
Would  they  ever  have  seen  any  of  the  scores  of  horrid  scenes 
of  which  that  of  Newtown barry  is  only  one'i  And, 
should  we  ever  have  been  covered  with  the  eternal  disgrace 
of  leaving  them  without  poor-laws,  while  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  them  have  died  from  starvation,  after  having 
eked  out  their  existence  by  feeding  on  sea-weed  and  other 
such  thingSjWhile  the  potts  of  their  fine  country  were  crowded 
with  ships  and  steam-boats,  carrying  away  its  beef,  pork, 
flour,  butter,  sheep,  hogs,  and  poultry?  Should  we  ever  have 
heard  of  a  surpluS'population  and  a  surplus-produce  at 
the  same  time?  Should  we  ever  have  heard  of  taxes,  raised 
for  the  purpose  of  getting  the  working  people  out  of  the 
country,  while  the  lands  are  half  cultivated ;  and  (for  I  must 


116  Two-PEKNY  Trash; 

stop  somewhere)  should  we  ever  have  seen,  at  the  same 
time,  enormous  taxes  raised  in  order  to  give  premiums  to  the 
idlers  to  increase  their  numbers  '?  No  :  none  of  these  things 
should  we  ever  have  seen  ;  nor  any  of  these  corn-laws,  com- 
bination-laws, or  laws  about  truck,  or  about  St  urges 
Bourne;  for  neither  of  these  things  would  have  found  a 
place  in  the  mind  of  man. 

Well,  then,  if  such  be  the  foundation  and  nature  of  this 
right;  if  the  consequences  of  a  want  of  its  enjoyment  be 
such ;  and  if,  with  the  exceptions  above-stated,  it  is  clearly 
a  right  belonging  to  every  man,  what  injustice  to  attempt 
to  withhold  it  even  from  the  small  portion  of  working  men 
to  whom  this  rejected  bill  would  have  yielded  it!  And 
what  impudence,  what  insolence,  to  accord  this  right  to  a 
tax  or  tithe-eater^  who  is,  only  by  taxes  or  tithes,  enabled 
to  live  in  a  house  of  twenty  pounds  a -year,  while  you  with- 
hold it  from  the  man  from  whose  labour  come  those  taxes 
and  those  tithes !  The  bare  thought  of  such  insolence  awakens 
indignation  that  sets  utterance  at  defiance  !  Go,  Den  man; 
go  to  Nottingham  again,  and  tell  them  there  that  you 
belong  to  a  ministry  who  think  right  to  TAKE  AWAY, 
directly,  the  suffrages  of  out-lying  voters,  and,  in  future^ 
of  all  burgesses  3,nd  free?nen  ;  and  who  have  now  found  out, 
that  a  rent  of  ten  pounds  a  year^  in  great  towns,  is  too  low 
to  qualify  a  man  to  give  a  vote  for  a  member  to  serve  in 
Parliament!  Go,  Denman  •  go  and  tell  them  that!  You 
need  not,  then,  put  forward  your  claims  on  them  for  your 
trouble  in  the  prosecution  of  me  and  for  your  mighty  and 
anxious  labours  in  Hampshire  and  Wiltshire.  You  have 
only  to  tell  them  THAT  !  Ah !  but,  will  you  not  be  pre- 
served from  this  for  six  years  to  come  !  I  verily  believe, 
that  even  that  will  be  attempted. 

Let  it !  I  would  much  rather  it  should,  than  that  this 
withholding  of  the  ten-pound  suffrage  should  take  place. 


1st  November,  1831.  117 

What  did  I  support  the  Reform  Bill  for  ?  Not  because  it 
gave  all  that  I  thought  it  ought  to  give.  It  was  expressly 
stated  by  the  advocates  of  the  Bill,  that  the  ballot  and  the 
duration  of  Parliaments  were  to  become  subjects  of  distinct 
and  subsequent  discussion.  The  suffrage  was  the  great 
matter;  and  though  it  fell  far  short  of  justice  to  the 
working  people,  I  saw  that,  by  making  the  standard  so  low 
as  ten  pounds  rent  in  the  great  towns,  the  working  people 
would,  in  a  few  years,  return  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  mem- 
bers, who  would  be  likely  to  maintain  their  rights.  I  saw 
the  injustice  of  shutting  out  the  agricultural  labourers,  as 
the  Bill  completely  did ;  but  then  I  knew,  that  it  was  impos- 
sible for  a  member  to  be  faithful  to  the  interests  of  the 
w^eaver  and  to  neglect  those  of  the  hedger  and  the  plough- 
man. I  saw  but  a  few  members,  comparatively,  to  be 
returned  by  the' working  people;  but  then  I  knew' that  those 
few  would  be  REAL  MEN;  and  that  Baring  saw  too, 
when  he  foreboded  that  the  great  towns  would  send  ''  push^ 
"  ing  men,  who  would  look  info  all  the  papers  laid  before 
*'  the  House."  I  saw  these  things ;  and  on  this  ground,  and 
no  other,  I  supported  the  Reform-Bill. 

But,  if  the  ten-pound  suffrage  be  to  be  raised,  or,  if  it  be 
to  be  so  altered,  by  transferring  it  from  rent  to  rate,  or  in 
any  manner  to  lessen  the  number  of  voters  in  the  great 
towns ;  then  I  say,  that  the  bill  is  an  evil,  clearly  an  evil, 
instead  of  a  good  ;  for  then  it  will  be  a  bill  to  disfranchise 
the  few  working  men  icho  now  have  votes,  and  7iot  to 
enfranchise  one  single  working  man  in  the  whole  king- 
dom !  It  will  immediately  disfranchise  the  out-lying  bur- 
gesses and  freemen,  and  also  disfranchise  the  scot-and-lot 
voters ;  and  it  will,  in  a  short  time,  disfranchise  the  resident 
burgesses  and  freemen ;  while  to  not  one  single  working  man 
in  any  part  of  the  kingdom  will  it  give  a  vote  ;  and,  with 
regard  to  political  rights,  all  the  working  millions   of  this 


118  Two-penny  Trash; 

kingdom  will  be  **  virtually  represented  ;  ''  that  is  to  say, 
by  their  masters^  precisely  as  the  blacks  in  Virginia  are  by 
theirs  ! 

And  I  am  to  express  my  '^  confideuQe^^  am  I,  in  a  minis- 
try who,  I  fear  (and  have  given  reasons  for  my  fearing), 
entertain  a  design  to  do  this  act  of  insolent  injustice  !  Of 
all  men  I  shall  be  the  most  ready  and  the  most  happy  to  find, 
and  to  acknowledge,  that  my  fears  have  been  unfounded  ; 
and,  in  that  case,  I  shall  again  be  ready  to  give  '*  the  whole 
bill  "  a  ''fair  trial; ''  and  shall  be  the  last  man  in  Eng- 
land to  cavil  at  the  acts  of  ministers,  or  to  do  anything  to 
annoy  them,  or  make  their  course  difficult.  But,  as  things 
now  stand;  with  announced  ''alterations'*  in  the  Bill; 
with  the  nature  of  those  alterations  kept  a  secret  from  us  ; 
and  with  the  speech  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  before  our  eyes, 
it  would  not  only  be  folly,  but  downright  baseness,  in  me, 
and  treachery  to  you,  the  working  people,  were  I  to  refrain 
from  expressing  beforehand    my  opinions  upon  the  subject. 

If  this  foul  deed  should  be  attempted  in  a  new  bill,  I 
shall  lose  not  a  moment  in  petitioning  against  that  bill 
myself;  and  I  shall  advise  all  others,  and  especially  the 
working  people,  to  do  the  same.  I  would  fain  have  ground 
for  hoping  that  the  necessity  will  not  arise  ;  but,  if  the  new 
bill  contain  any-thing,  no  matter  what,  to  lessen  the  num- 
ber of  voters  in  the  great  towns  ;  then  let  the  working  peo- 
ple in  those  towns,  and  in  the  small  towns  and  the  counties 
also,  turn  with  scorn  from  the  preachers  up  of  patience  ! 
What  was  the  ground  on  which  I  gave  my  support  to  the 
Bill  ?  I  saw  that  it  would  immediately  disfranchise  all  non- 
resident voters,  and,  in  a  short  time,  all  the  luorking  peo» 
pie  who  now  have  votes  ;  but  I  saw,  on  the  other  hand, 
that,  by  giving  a  vote  to  ten-pound  renters  in  the  great 
towns,  it  would  insure  the  return  of  from  fifty  to  a  hundred 
members,  by  the  free  and  uncorrupt  voices  of  the  working 


1st  November,  1831.  119 

people  ;  and  I  knew  that  those  members  would  soon  cause 
to  be  done  those  things  which  ought  to  be  done.  But,  if  this 
provision  of  the  bill  be  taken  out,  or  damaged,  am  I  still  to 
approve  of  the  bill  1  Am  I  to  see  disfranchised  all  the  work- 
ing men  who  now  vote,  and  to  see  no  working  men  enfran- 
chised in  their  stead  ;  am  I  to  see,  by  a  false  and  base 
"pretence  dhonf  unimiformity ,^^  the  qualification  in  great 
towns  so  raised  as  to  lessen  that  number  of  working  voters, 
which  is,  according  to  the  bill,  already  too  small ;  am  I  to 
see,  in  addition  to  the  working  country -people,  those  of  the 
great  towns  premeditatedly  stripped  of  their  rights ;  am  I  to 
see  the  few  oligarchs  of  the  boroughs  exchanged  for  a  swarm 
of  oligarchs,  one  of  whom  is  to  be  found  in  every  counting- 
house,  and  in  every  great  homestead  ;  am  I  to  call  that  *^  a 
JReform  ''  which  will  be  manifestly  intended  to  disfranchise 
the  whole  of  the  w^orking  people,  and  to  make  them,  for  ages, 
the  slaves  of  a  grinding,  an  omnipresent,  never-sleeping, 
oligarchy  of  money ^  with  little  finger  heavier  than  the  loins 
of  the  boroughmoDgers  :  suspecting  this  to  be  intended,  am 
I  to  express  my  ''  confidence  "  in  those  by  whom  I  think 
the  intention  to  be  entertained  !  Paralysed  be  my  hand 
when  I  write,  blistered  and  burnt  up  be  my  tongue  when  I 
pronounce,  such  ''  confidence  ;  "  and,  eternal  shame  be  the 
lot  of  all  those  who  (suspecting  as  I  do)  are  calling  on  the 
people  to  express  or  repose  such  ^'  confidence  !  " 

My  friends,  be  not  deceived,  be  not  cajoled yhe prepared! 
The  moment  I  arrive  at  the  certainty  that  the  Ministers  in- 
tend to  do  this  thing,  I  will  give  you  my  advice  as  to  several 
Steps  that  you  ought  to  take.     In  the  meanwhile, 

I  remain,  your  faithful  Friend, 

Wm.  cobbett. 


120  Mr.  Cobbett's  List  of  Books. 

COBBETT'S  CORN-BOOK  {Piice  2s.  6d.)  ;  or,  A  Treatise 

on  Cobbett's  Corn  :  containing^  Instructions  for  Propagating  and 
Cultivating  the  Plant,  and  for  Harvesting  and  Preserving  the  Crop; 
and  also  an  Account  of  the  several  Uses  to  which  the  Produce  is 
applied,  with  Minute  Directions  relative  to  each  mode  of  Appli- 
cation,— This  edition  1  sell  at  25.  6d.,  that  it  may  ^Qt  into  7iumerous 
ha?ids, 

COBBETT'S  WOODLANDS  {Prlre  Us.)  ;  or,  A  Treatise  on 
Forest  Trees  and  Underwoods,  and  the  Manner  of  Collecting,  Pre- 
serving, and  Sowing  of  the  Seed. 

COBBETT'S  PAPER  AGAINST  GOLD  (Price  55.)  ;  or,  the 
History  and  Mystery  of  the  Bank  of  England,  of  the  Debt,  of  the 
Stocks,  of  the  Sinking  Fund,  and  of  all  the  other  tricks  and  con- 
trivances carried  on  by  the  means  of  Paper  Money. 

COBBETT'S  POOR  MAX'S  FRIEND  (Price  M.);  or,  a  De- 
fence of  the  Rights  of  those  who  do  the  Work  and  fight  the  Battles. 
— ^This  is  my  favourite  work.  1  bestowed  more  labour  upon  it  than 
upon  any  large  volume  that  I  ever  wrote. 

COBBETT'S  EMIGRANT'S  GUIDE  (25.  6^.) ;  in  Ten  Letters, 

addressed  to  the  Taxpayers  of  England. 

COBBETT'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  PROTESTANT  REFOR- 
MATION in  England  and  Ireland  (Price  4s.  i]d.)  ;  showing  how 
that  Event  has  impoverished  and  degraded  the  main  Body  of  the 
People  in  those  Countries  :  PART  11.  (Price  3s.  6d.)  ;  contain- 
ing a  List  of  the  Abbeys,  Priories,  Nunneries,  Hospitals,  and  other 
Pceligious  Foundations,  in  England  and  Wales,  and  in  Ireland, 
conriscated,  seized  on,  or  alienated,  by  the  Protestant  "  Reforma- 
tion," Sovereigns,  and  Parlian»ents. 

COBBEPl'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  REGENCY  AND  REIGN 
OF  GEORGE  IV. — 'ibis  work  is  published  in  Nos.  at  i\d.  each,  and 
shall  do  justice  to  the  late  *'  7mld  and  rnerciful"  King, 

LAFAYETTE'S  LIFE  (Price  Is.)  A  brief  Account  of  the  Life 
of  that  brave  and  honest  man,  translated  from  the  French,  by  Mr. 
James  Cobbett. 

MR.  JOHN  COBBETT'S  LETTERS  FROM  FRANCE   (Price 

45.  6d.) 

MR.  JAMES  COBBETT'S  RIDE  OF  EIGHT  HUNDRED 
MILES  IN  FRANCE  (the  Third  Edition,  Price  2s.  6d.) 

MR.  JAMES  COBBETT'S  TOUR  IN  ITALY,  and  also  in  Part 
of  FRANCE  and  SWITZERLAND  (Price  As.  6d.) 

COi^BETT'S  TRANSLATION  OF  MARTENS'S  LAW  OF 
NATIONS  (Price  \7s.)  :  being  the  Science  of  National  Law, 
Covenants,  Power,  &c.  Founded  upon  the  Treaties  and  Customs 
of  Modern  Nations  in  Europe. 

MR.  WM.  COBBETT'S  LAW  OF  TURNPIKES   (Price  35.  6d.) 
[Primed  by  Wm.  Cbbbctt,  Johnson's-court,  Fleet-street. J 


No.  6.  Vol.  II. 


COBBETT'S 

TWO-PENNY  TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  December,  1831. 


PuhlisJied  monthly^  sold  at  I2s,  Cd,  a  hundred,  and  for  300,  taken  at 

once,  lis. 


COBBETT-CORN. 

TO   THE 

WORKING  PEOPLE  AND   THE  FARMERS 

OF 

ENGLAND,  SCOTLAND,  AND  IRELAND. 


Kensington,  1st  December,  1831. 
My  Friexds, 

There  never  was  a  subject  of  such  importance  as  this, 
presented  to  the  attention  of  any  people  in  the  world ;  for, 
if  I  be  correct  in  my  opinions,  here  are  the  means  point- 
ed out  of  doubling,  at  the  least,  the  quantity  of  food, 
which  the  land  of  this  country  can  be  made  to  produce 
without  the  cultivation  of  this  corn.  My  eldest  son,  to 
whom  belongs  all  the  praise  due  to  the  introduction  of  this 
article  of  food,  urged  me  to  the  undertaking,  on  the  ground 
that  the  introduction  of  the  plant  into  general  use  would 
have  such  prodigious  effect ;  and  the  impression  made  upon 
•my  mind  by  his  calculations  and  his  reasoning,  induced  me 
to  yield  to  his  request. 


London  :   Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street; 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 

G 


122  Two-PEN^'Y  Trash; 

It  is  to  speak  greatly  within  bounds,  to  state,  that,  on  an 
average,  this  corn  would  produce,  at  least,  ten  quarters  of 
grain  to  the  acre^  which  is  more  than  three  times  as  much 
as   the  average  crop   of  wheat  throughout  the  kingdom. 
It  stands  upon  the  ground  but  five  months;  and  admits  of  a 
crop  of  tares  or  cabbages  during  the  other  part  of  the  year. 
The  fodder,  as  I  shall  further  on  prove  as  clear  as]  day- 
light, is  worth  eight  pounds  an  acre,  to  speak  greatly  within 
compass.     I  shall  prove,  from  incontestable  evidence,  that  a 
bushel  of  this  corn  produces  more  four  than  a  bushel  of 
the  very  best  wheat.     I  shall  also  prove,  that,  in  point  of 
real  utility,  it  is  of  more  value,  pound  for  pound,  than 
w'heat   flour ;  and   if  I  do  prove   all  this,  is   not  the  in- 
troduction   of  this  corn  the  greatest    and   most   laudable 
undertaking     of  which  mortal    man   ever  had    to  ^boast  ? 
And   what    a  wonderful  effect  is   here  from  a  cause  the 
most  trifling  in  itself!    My  son  brought  three  little  miserable 
ears  of  this  corn  to  England  in   the  year   1826,  neither  of 
them  longer  than  my  middle   finger,  and  neither  of  them 
bigger  round  than  a  common  mould-candle.     I  have  plenty 
of  ears  from  several  parts  of  the  country,  seven  inches  long, 
and  some  ears  approaching  the  weight  of  half  a  pound. 
The  corn  goes  on  increasing  in  size  aswell  as  in  goodness  of 
quality.     I  can  show  a  bushel  of  ears  equal  even  in  size  to 
the  average  of  the  corn-ears   of  the   general  run  of  crops 
in  Long  Island  ;  and,  as  I  shall  prove  before  I  have  done, 
our  crops  are  four  times  as  great  as  their  crops,  while  the 
quality  of  our  corn  is,  beyond  all  measure,  superior  to  theirs. 
This,  therefore,  I  scruple  not  to  say,   is   the  greatest  thing 
that  individual  ever  did  for  his  country;  and  such  it  must 
be  acknowledged  to  be,  if  I  prove  the  truth  of  the  assertions 
I  have  here  made. 

But  it  is,  first  of  all,  necessary  to  prove  that  this  corn 
will  come  to  perfection  in  this  country  ;  and  that  I  am  now 


1st  December,  1831.  123 

going  to  prove,  in  a  manner  which  would  close  up  the  gain- 
saying jaws  of  anyone  upon  earth,  the  Liar  only  ex* 
cepted.  In  giving  an  account  of  the  corn  which  I  have 
received  from  the  several  counties,  I  shall  begia  at  the 
1^0 RTH,  come  on  towards  the  south,  and  then  go  into  the 
EAST  ;  then  to  the  avest  ;  and  then  into  the  four  southern* 
counties  of  Surrey,  Kent,  Sussex,  and  Hampshire, 
ending  with  a  very  particular  account  of  what  has  been 
done  in  the  parishes  round  about  Battle,  and  in  the  little 
bunch  of  HARD  PARISHES  in  the  north  of  Hampshire. 

From  Mr.  Duncan  Anderson,  of  Paisley,  I  re- 
ceived two  very  fine  ears  of  corn  that  were  gathered  in  the 
month  of  September  :  they  were  not  ripe,  nor  anything  like 
ripe,  nor  was  the  season  come  for  iheir  being  ripe  even  in  the 
south  of  England  ;  but  Mr.  Anderson  had  a  friend  coming 
from  Paisley  to  London;  and  he  gathered  the  ears  a 
month  before  the  time  in  order  not  to  lose  that  opportunity. 
Paisley  is,  I  believe,  four  hundred  miles  to  the  north  of 
London.  I  have  received  a  large  bunch  of  very  fine  ears  of 
corn ;  not  so  long  nor  quite  so  large  as  some  others,  but 
perfect  in  form,  and  perfectly  ripe,  growed,  this  year,  by 
Mr.  Blakey,  at  Morpeth^  in  Northumberland,  for 
which  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  that  gentleman.  At 
Preston^  in  Lancashire,  Mr.  Wilcoxson,  the  editor  of 
the  Preston  Chronicle,  to  whom  I  sent  a  bag  of  corn  in 
the  spring  for  distribution,  informs  me  that  several  persons 
to  whom  he  gave  the  corn  have  had  very  fine  crops  at  and 
near  that  place,  where  it  seems  eight  or  ten  personspiave 
cultivated  the  corn. 

In  Lincolnshire,  at  and  near  Great  Grimsby,  the 
corn  has  been  growed  with  great  success.  Mr.  Joshua 
Plaskitt,  of  that  place,  has  sent  me  twenty^one  samples 
of  corn,  growed  in  and  near  it,  all  ripe,  sound,  andfperfect, 
and  marked  with  the  names  of  the  several  growers,  amongst 

G  2 


124  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

which  I  have  the  pleasure  to  see  that  there  are  those  of 
some  labouring  men.  Mr.  Paddisox,  of  Louth^  in  the 
same  count}^  has  sent  me  a  fine  sample  of  corn  grovved  ia 
that  neighbourhood.  He  cannot  speak  to  the  amount  of 
the  crop,  but  says  his  corn  is  as  fine  as  any  that  he 
ever  saw  of  my  growing,  which  indeed  it  appears 
to    be,  from  the  sample  which  he  has  sent.     Seven  other 

(persons  in  his  neighbourhood  have  growed  tlie  corn,  and 
have  had  very  fine  crops.  Doctor  Snaitii^  at  Boston, 
in  the  same  county,  tells  me,   that  he  himself  has  had  a 

'fine  crop  ;  that  the  ears  are  generally  finer  than  those  that 
he  received  from  me  ;  that  he  has  received  eight  or  ten 
samples  from  those  to  whom  he  gave  the  corn  ;  that  all 
who  have  cultivated  it  have  had  good  crops^  excepting  one 
person ;  that  the  whole  neighbourhood  is  delighted  with  it, 
and  that  several  farmers  have  applied  to  him  for  informa- 
tion about  it. 

From  Norfolk  I  have  not  received  any  specific  infor- 
mation, nor  any  samples  ;  but  from  Suffolk,    I  have  re- 

•  ceived  from  Mr.  Robert  Child,  of  Bujigay^  samples  of 
'^v'^ery  fine  corn,  growed  this  year  in  several  parishes  of  the 
feastern  part  of  that  county.  From  Mr.  Clouting,  of  Eye, 
in  Suffolk,  I  have  received  two  ears  of  beautiful  corn.  He 
tells  me  that  the  corn  amounts  to  twenty  coombs  per  acre; 
that  is  to  say,  ten  quarters  per  acre ;  and  he  tells  me,  that 
he  has  seen  Mr.  Kent,  of  Stanton,  who  tells  him  that  he 
has  growed,  this  year,  full  twenty  coombs  upon  an  acre,  and 
that  the  shelled  corn  weighed  234  pounds  the  coomb,  which 
is  fifty-eight  and  a  half  the  bushel.  This  falls  a  litle  short 
of  my  weight,  which  I  shall  have  hereafter  to  state.  From 
Ipswich  I  received  a  very  fine  sample  of  corn,  and  it  was 
the  first  I  received  this  year ;  but  I  mislaid  the  letter,  and 
be^  pardon  of  the  writer  fornot  having  answered  it. 

I  now  go  towards  the  west.     In  Berkshire  I  have 


1st  December,  1831.  125 

only  to  speak  of  some  samples  of  very  good  corn  raised 
by  Mr.  Bued  of  Burgliclearc,  Mr.  Gray  of  NeivburTjy 
and  Mr.  Forsburg,  who  lives,  I  believe,  at  Newtown,  In 
Wiltshire  some  beautiful  corn  has  been  growed  at  and 
near  Malmeshury,  I  ought  to  have  accounts  from  Pewsey 
and  that  neighbourhood  ;  but  they  have  not  arrived.  7'he 
•corn  has  been  growed  at  Fisherton,  near  Salisbury,  by 
Mr.  Barling,  and  by  others,  to  whom  he  gave  some  of 
the  corn  sent  by  me.  There  is  no  better  situation  in  the 
kingdom  for  the  growth  of  this  corn  ;  but  the  farms  in 
Wiltshire  have  always  been  large,  from  the  very  nature 
of  that  fine  and  beautiful  county.  The  labourers  have  worse 
gardens  than  almost  anywhere  else ;  and  they  have  been 
brought  down  closer  to  the  infernal  potato  level. 

From  Gloucestershire,  I  have  received  a  letter  from 
Mr.  Daniel  Croome,  of  Berkeley,  and  twenty  ears  of  his 
own  crop  of  most  excellent  corn.  This  gentleman  distri- 
buted eighty- eight  ears  of  the  corn  that  I  sent  to  him  to  an 
equal  number  of  persons  in  the  parish  and  neighbourhood. 
He  tells  me,  that  he  finds  that  the  corn  has  been  very  pro- 
ductive, and  ripened  well;  and  that  he  finds  that  the  leaves, 
and  even  the  stems,  of  the  corn-plant,  are  very  good  food 
for  horses,  which  I  well  knew  before,  and  which  I  have 
amply  experienced  this  last  summer.  From  Mr.  Richard 
Iles,  of  Fairford,  I  have  the  following  account,  which  I 
am  compelled  to  give  in  abridgment ;  namely,  that  he  has 
had,  on  three  quarters  of  an  acre  and  nine  rods,  an  average 
of  sixty-eight  bushels  of  shelled  corn  to  the  acre.  He  hav- 
ing encountered  many  disadvantages  not  to  be  expected  to 
be  experienced  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things  ;  but  here, 
under  all  these  disadvantges,  Mr.  Iles  has  eight  quarters 
and  a  half  oi  shelled  corn  to  the  acre,  which  is  more  than 
double  the  average  amount  of  a  crop  of  Vvheat  upon  regular 
wheat-land;  and,  observe,  always  when  the  wheat  is  seven 


126  T\\^o-PENNY  Trash; 

shillings  and  sixpence  a  bushel,  the  corn  will  be  worth  six 
shillings  the  busheh  From  Mr.  Gomme,  bookseller,  of 
Gloucester,  to  whom  I  sent  a  bag  of  the  corn  for  distribution, 
I  have  a  letter,  in  which  he  tells  me  that  he  gave  the  corn 
to  fifty- seven  persons,  nearly  all  labourers ;  that  they  have  all 
had  excellent  crops,  and  that  next  year,  as  he  believes,  the 
planting  of  tbe  corn  will  become  very  general, 

I  now  return  to  the  south.     At  Farnham,  in  Surrey, 
some  very  fine  corn  has  been  growed  by  my  nephew,  who 
is  a  schoolmaster  there  ;  but  it  was  small  in  quantity,  and  his 
land  is  exceedingly  good.    There  is  a  part  of  that  extensive 
parish  called  tbe  Bourne,    which  in    some  sort  resembles 
the  seat  of   the  Benedictine  Monks  in  the  times  of  the 
ancient  and  desolating  w^ars  ;  it  is  a  wild  common,  covered 
with  heath,  with  here  and  there  a  green  dip,  lying  between 
the  innumerable  little  hills  ;  at  least,   such  was   its  state 
when  I  was  a  little  boy;  and  there  I  spent  many  a  day, 
digging  after  rabbits'-nests,  rolling  down  the  sand-hills,  and 
whipping  the  little  efts   that   crept   about   in  the  heath. 
But  this  scene  is  quite  changed ;  the  land  being  generally 
too  poor  to  attract  the  rich,  this  common  has  escaped  en- 
closure bills ;  and   every  little   green  dip  is  now  become  a 
cottager's  garden  or  field,  appropriated  on  the  principles  of 
the  law  of  nature  ;  and,  the   Bishop  being  the  Lord  of  the 
Manor,  while  the  herbage  is  hardly  worth  looking  after  by  his 
tenants,  these  appropriators  have  been  suffered  to  go  on,  till 
they  have  formed  a  grand  community  of  cottages,  each  with 
its  plat  of  ground  and  its  pigsty.     Humble  as  are  the  dwell- 
ings of  the  '*■  Bourners,''  they   have  not,  it  seems,  wholly 
escaped  the  viper  tongue  of  envy;  and  though  I  do  not  pre- 
tend that  their  community,  like  that  of  the  ancient  fathers 
of  Saint  Benedict,  is,  to  quote  the  beautiful  description  of 
Mr.  Southey,  absolutely  "  a  green  Oasis  amidst:the  desert ;" 
and  that,  '*  lile  stars  in  a  moonless  nighty   it  shines  upon 


1st  December,  1831.  127 

the  country  round  with  a  tranquil  ray  •/'  though  I  do  not 
pretend  that  the  Bourners  are  equal  to  the  Benedictines, 
either  in  learning  or  in  piety  j  though  I  do  not  pretend,  that 
the  Eourne  is  that  '*  Goshen  of  God,  which  enjoys  its 
own  light  amidst  darkness  and  storms ;''  I  do  pretend  that 
this  community  of  cottages,  **  trespassers'^  as  the  occu- 
pants are,  is  a  good  thing,  seeing  that  it  gives  bacon  to 
hundreds  who,  without  it,  would  have  to  live  upon  the 
soul-debasing  potatoes.  And  if  I  live  till  next  spring,  and 
can  possibly  find  the  time,  I  will  go  down,  and  make  all 
these  Bourners  cultivate  my  corn  ;  and  I  hereby,  to  save 
postage  (and  not  run  the  risk  of  losing  a  letter  to  Farnham, 
as  I  lost  one  from  it),  request  my  nephew  to  rent  for  me 
twenty  or  thirty  rods  of  pretty  good  ground,  in  the  Bourne, 
on  the  side  of. the  Bourne  towards  the  town,  or  on  the 
flat ;  to  give  a  good  rent  for  it,  and  to  have  it  dug  up 
deep,  and  laid  rough,  as  soon  as  he  can.  Standing  upon 
their  pristine  privileges  ;  like  the  exemplary  mistress  of  the 
unfortunate  Abelard, 

*^  Scorning  all  laws  but  those  by  nature  made  ;" 

being  stronger  than  I,  and  seeing  the  corn  to  be  a  good  thing, 
the  Bourners  may  perhaps  come  and  exercise  on  it  le 
droit  du  plus  fort:  in  plain  English,  take  it  away;  at 
which  I  shall  not  repine,  if  they  observe  but  one  condition; 
namely,  not  to  take  it  till  it  be  quite  ripe!  The  mode 
in  which  I  intend  to  proceed  is  this :  to  carry  down  a  bag 
of  corn,  and  to  go  to  every  Bourner  that  has  got  a  pig  or  a 
fowl,  show  him  an  ear  of  the  corn,  and  then  toss  it  down  to 
his  pig  or  his  fowl,  letting  him  draw  his  information  in  at 
his  eyes.  They  will  all  soon  hear  that  I  have  planted  a 
piece  of  that  corn  ;  and  when  they  see  the  crop,  the  busi- 
ness is  done,  whether  they  see  me  take  it  away  in  a  lump, 
or  whether  they  themselves  take  it  away  in  detail.  Now% 
-quitting  the  Bourners  till  the  spring,  I  go  to  Chilworth,  in 


128  Two-penny  Trash; 

the  same  county,  which  lies  on  the  south  side  of  St.Martha^s- 
hill,  near  Guildford^  where  Mr.  Rowland's  sou  tells  me 
that  he  gave  some  of  the  corn  to  a  labouring  man,  who 
brought  him,  the  other  day,  a  sparib,  weighing  ten  pounds 
and  a  half,  from  a  hog  fatted,  as  Mr.  Rowland  understood, 
with  the  produce  of  the  corn.  At  Redhill,  near  ReigatCy 
in  the  same  county,  Mr.  Clarence  had  tw^enty  rods,  which 
produced  nine  heaped  bushels  of  corn  in  the  ear,  and  from 
six  to  seven  bushels  of  shelled  corn  3  but  he  says  that  a 
great  part  of  his  corn  did  not  ripen ;  and  that  he  used  part 
of  it  in  the  green  state.  He  is  of  opinion,  and  so  am  I  too, 
that  it  v^^ill  not  answer  to  grow  it  in  considerable  quantities, 
without  the  assistance  of  a  kiln ;  and  that  is  what  I  am 
croins:  to  show  most  clearly  before  I  have  concluded  this 
paper.  As  Mr.  Clarence  says  nothing  about  the  fodder ^  I 
suppose  he  did  not  think  of  using  the  leaves  and  tops  in  that 
way ;  this  is  the  worst  account  of  the  corn  I  ever  received  7 
but  it  is  right  that  I  should  give  the  bad  as  well  as  the  good. 

From  Kent  I  have  received  beautiful  samples  of  corn, 
raised  by  Mr.  Fish,  brew^er,  ^t  Maidstone  ;  and  from  7b?i- 
bridge  a  very  good  account  from  Mr.  Kipping,  who  says 
that  the  crops  are  large  and  well  ripened,  and  who  sends  me 
some  very  beautiful  samples. 

In  Sussex,  I  skip  over  Battle  and  its  neighbourhood  for 
the  present,  and  go  to  Fevensey  and  its  celebrated  Level, 
whence  Mr.  Thos.  Plum  ley  writes  to  me,  that  he  had 
destined  forty  rods  of  ground  for  the  corn,  which  he  planted 
in  May,  one  part  a  little  later  than  the  other ;  that  early  in 
June,  a  flock  of  forty  geese  got  in,  and  pulled  up  all  that 
was  out  of  the  ground ;  so  that  he  was  obliged  to  trans- 
plant^ and  not  having  plants  enough,  he  fell  ten  rods 
short;  a  part  of  his  ground  was  planted  on  the  28th  of 
May ;  and  the  plants  wxre  not  out  of  the  ground  when 
the  geese  got  in.  He  had  therefore  but  tlurty  rods  of 
ground  in  corn ;  and  he  says,  that   he  shall   have  twenty 


1st  December,  1831.  129 

bushels  of  shelled  corn,  notwithstanding  the  injury  his  crop 
received.  He  says  that  his  corn  was  neither  topped  nor 
bladed.  He  sends  me  six  ears,  which  he  says  were  taken 
from  the  plants  planted  on  the  28th  of  May,  and  gathered 
about  the  12th  of  November  ;  so  that  this  crop  was  upon 
the  ground  from  the  putting  in  of  the  seed  to  the  gathering 
of  the  corn,  only  a  hundred  and  sixty-eight  days.  Mr. 
Plumley  says,  at  the  close  of  his  letter,  *'  I  have  had  one 
sack  ground ;  it  weighed  two  hundred  and  forty-eight 
pounds,  which  very  much  surprised  me,  not  thinking  it 
would  weigh  so  much/'  The  six  ears  sent  by  Mr.  Plumley 
are  amongst  the  finest  that  I  ever  saw  ;  and  one  of  the 
ears  is  the  very  largest  and  heaviest  that  I  ever  saw  of  the 
Cohbett-corn.  Being  here,  just  upon  the  edge  of  the  water, 
I  will  step  over  to  Guernsey,  whence  I  have  received  a 
box  of  most  beautiful  corn.  I  thought  it  exceeded  every- 
thing till  I  saw  that  of  Mr.  Plumley ;  and  Mr.  Plumley 
surpasses  it  only  in  one  single  ear.  Some  of  my  own  is, 
I  think,  equal  to  the  Guernsey-corn ;  but  not  quite  equal  to 
the  corn  of  Mr.  Plumley.  It  is  truly  surprising  that  this 
corn  never  should  before  have  been  cultivated  in  Guernsey 
and  Jersey,  though  it  has  ybr  ages  and  ages  been  cultivated 
at  Brittany,  where  it  is  still  cultivated,  but  in  a  miserable 
w'ay.  The  gentlemen  who  send  me  these  samples  of  corn 
from  Guernsey  are  full  of  expressions  of  gratitude  for  the 
good  that  I  have  done  their  country. 

Strange  thing !  The  land  is  the  same,  the  climate  the 
same,  that  they  always  were;  the  corn  has  existed  in 
the  world  always;  its  qualities  have  always  been  the  same  ; 
and  yet  it  never  was  cultivated  even  in  these  southern  islands,. 
until  I  put  pen  to  paper  on  the  subject.  If  the  whole  of  the 
whig  ministry  were  to  live  to  the  age  of  Methuselah,  they 
would  not  do  so  much  good  in  the  world  as  I  have  done  to 
these  little  islands  alone.     If  this  should  reach  the  eye  of 

g5 


130  Two-penny  Trash; 

any  of  those  gentlemen  who  have  corn  to  sell,  this  is  to 
inform  them,  and  everybody  else  indeed,  that  Mr.  Saps- 
roRD,  corner  of  Queen-Anne  and  Wimpole  streets,  v^ill 
purchase  any  quantity  at  three  shillings  for  a  bushel  of 
ears  of  sound  and  dry  corn.  Thus^  we  have  the  corn 
ripening  to  perfection  from  the  island  of  Guernsey  to 
Paisley  in  Scotland  !  Coming  back  now  to  Sussex,  I  have 
received,  through  Mr.  George  Robinson  of  Lewes,  a 
sample  of  very  fine  corn,  grovv^ed  by  James  Collins  of 
Isfteld,  which,  Mr.  Robinson  tells  me,  has  been  very 
much  admired  by  many  farmers  and  gentlemen.  From 
Lodge  farm,  in  the  parish  of  Worthy  Mr.  Samuel  Bra- 
zier sends  me  a  very  fine  specimen  of  corn,  and  also  a  spe- 
cimen of  Swedish  turnips,  growed  from  my  seed,  one  weigh- 
ing nine  and  a  half  pounds  and  one  seven  pounds.  Endless 
are  the  lashes  which  these  letters  lay  upon  the  back  of  THE 
LIAR.  It  would  be  almost  repetition  to  insert  the  passages 
describing  his  baseness ;  but  I  cannot  help  inserting  the 
words  of  Mr.  Brazier,  so  truly  rustic  and  apt  are  they. 
''  I  can  say  nothing  about  Hunt,  as  he  holds  with  the  hounds 
and  runs  with  the  hare T'  Brazier  knows  the  fellow  of 
old,  and  he  knows  Brazier  well!  From  Chichester,  in 
the  same  county,  I  have  received  a  great  many  samples  of 
very  fine  corn,  the  ears  all  ticketed,  and  the  names  of  the 
growers  put  to  them,  and  accompanied  with  the  following 
letter  from  Mr.  Richard  Cosins  of  Chichester. 

St.John^s-street,  Chichester,  Nov.  2\y  1831. 

*'  Dear  Sir, — With  ^reat  pleasure  I  assisted  Mr.  Gray  iu  the 
distribution  of  the  Cobbett-corn,  which  you  kindly  sent  to  Chi- 
chester, in  order  to  be  planted  last  spring". 

"  We  now  send  you  some  sanipies  of  the  corn.  The  ticketed 
ears  are  the  growth  of  the  respective  growers;  on  which  tickets  a 
few  rerr^arks  are  made  as  to  the  quantity  planted  and  as  to  the 
f^oodness  of  crop;  the  quality  of  the  corn  will  speak  for  itself. 
The  untickeied  ears  are  mostly  the  growth  of  labourers  living  ia 
different  parishes  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Chichester,  who  planted 


1st  December,  1831.  131 

patches  in  their  g^ardens,  and  who  in  most  instances  used  a  great 
part  of  it  in  its  milky  state,  and  the  remainder  of  the  corn  has  since 
been  griven  to  their  pigs  or  poultry,  but  who  in  every  instance  have 
made  a  reserve  of  some  of  the  corn  to  plant  again  ;  regretting  they 
have  not  more  ground  to  plant  it  in.  Now,  Sir,  you  may  rely  on  it 
that  in  every  instance  where  the  corn  was  planted,  it  more  than 
realised  the  expectations  of  the  grower ;  and  depend  upon  it  that 
numbers  of  others  will  plant  the  corn  next  spring.  I  aspired  to  the 
honour  of  being  your  host  had  you  reached  Chichester  when  on 
your  tour  from  Lewis  to  the  west,  an  honour  which  I  still  hope 
to  have.     With  sincere  wishes  for  your  health  and  happiness, 

**  I  remain,  dear  Sir, 

Your  obedient  and  humble  servant, 

**  RICHARD  COSJNS." 


"  Oiichester,  AW.  21,  1831. 

*'  Dear  Sir, — Immediately  on  the  receipt  of  your  parcel  of  corn 
last  April,  I  took  the  whole  to  our  mutual  friend  Mr.  R.  CosinS, 
who  being  o.  retired  farmer,  and  having  leisure,  I  thought  would  do 
the  thing  better  than  I  could,  to  whose  annexed  account  I  refer 
you,  which,  together  with  the  parcel  of  corn  sent  by  the  bearer, 
our  friend,  Mr.  Adams,  of  our  town,  will  be  enough  to  make  Hunt 
blush,  if  his  skin  is  not  too  thick.  Hunt  did  not  send  me  one  of 
his  circulars. 

**  Mr.  Cosins  has  no  objection  to  his  name  appearing  in  print* 
if  you  think  proper.  /  thw,k  if  his  letter  appears  in  your  publica- 
tion, it  may  do  good,  as  he  is  much  looked  up  to  as  an  upright 
man,  a  consistent  politician,  a  good  farmer,  and  well  known  through 
west  Sussex  and  east  Hampshire.  At  any  time  you  may  command 
mi/  services,  1  shall  hQ  proud  to  oblige  you  in  any  way. 

'*  Your  humble  servant, 

"  JAMES  GRAY.'* 

I  nowgointo  Hampshire,  beginningat  Portsea,  whence 
I  have  received,  through  Mr.  Bigwood  of  Queen-street, 
fifteen  samples  of  very  beautiful  corn.  He  executed  my 
request  very  punctually,  and  has  taken  great  pains  in  ren- 
dering me  an  account  of  the  result.  His  indignation  against 
the  LIAR  is  too  great  for  him  to  express.  One  of  the  sam- 
ples of  corn  sent  by  Mr.  Bigwood  was  accompanied  with  a 
letter,  which  is  of  so  interesting  a  nature  that  I  cannot 
refrain  from  inserting  it  here. 

Elm  Cottage,  near  Kingston  Cross ^  Nov,  21,  1831. 
*'  Sir, — This  year  I  planted  a  piece   of  land  with  corn  in  open 
ground  in  rows   three   feet  eight  inches  apart.      On  the   18th   of 


132  Tavo-pexny  Trash  ; 

April,  when  the  corn  came  up,  I  found  that  some  had  failed. 
I  then  transplanted  and  made  good  the  rows,  and  seeing  they 
loi)ked  wide  a{)art,  J  planted  a  row  of  York  cabbage  between  each 
TOW  y  I  cut  the  cabbage  and  hoed  the  corn,  and  then  planted 
));i'Coli  in  tl^e  same  rows,  which  is  now  growing.  The  ear  I  have 
sent  you  is  a  fair  sample,  there  being  from  two  to  three  on  a 
stalk,  and  on  some  I  had  four.  Now,  Sir,  I  sowed  at  the  same 
time  a  piece  of  land  with  barley  equal  in  size  to  that  the  corn  was 
on.  The  produce  of  the  corn  was  half  as  much  more  in  measure 
and  weight  than  the  barley.  1  had  a  loaf  made  of  half  corn  and 
half  wheat  last  vear,  and  it  was  very  good  bread.  But  JNJrs.  King 
keeps  the  corn  'or  poultry,  finding  they  fatted  quickly  and  firm, 
and  laid  much  finer  eggs  than  wiih  barley  feeding.  I  find  it  has 
the  same  effect  with  pigs  as  with  poultry.  1  gathered  several  ears 
of  corn,  quite  ripe,  on  the  2d  of  September,  and  all  was  gathered  ia 
by  the  middle  of  October. 

'*  J  remain  your  bumble  servant, 

*«  VVM.  KING." 

I  cannot  sufficiently  thank  Mr.  Big  wood  for  the  pains  he 

has  taken  ;  but  he   is  a   really  *'  public-spirited  man,  and 

requires  no  thanks  ;    with  him  to  do  good  to  the  country  is 

to  do  good  to  himself  i   and  that  is  the  case  with  every  man 

who  communicates  with  me  on  this  most  interesting  subject. 

From  Lymington^  Mr.  John    Tem pl er   writes  me,  that 

the  corn  has  succeeded  everywhere.     I   have   received  ears 

Irom  a   lady  living  in    the   neighbourhood  of  Lymington. 

Mr.  Templer  adds,   and   "  yet  Hunt  calls  the  corn  that 

*'  you  gave  away  zl  fraud  !     Why,  what  an  impudent  brazen 

*'  LIAR  the  fellow  must  be  !      And   this  is  the  use,  is  it, 

**  that   the  fool  makes  of  the  povv'er  of  franking  given   to 

**  him  by  the  people  of  Preston  T'     At   Alton,   in  the  same 

county,  T  saw  some  as  fine  corn  as  I  ever  saw  in    my  life^ 

last  summer.     From  Old  Alresford,   from  a  Mr.  Roberts, 

who    is   I    believe  both    a    miller    and    a  farmer,    I  have 

received  a  bunch  of  cars  of  corn  as  fine  as  ever   grew   from 

the  earth  ;    not  quite  so  large,   so  long,   nor   so  heavy,    as 

S")me  of  mine,  as  the  Guernsey-corn,  and  as  Mr.   Plumley's 

of  Pevensey  ;    but   certainly  rather  exceeding  all  the  other 

samples,  except  perhaps  one  which  comes  from  Suffolk, 


1st  December,  1831.  133 

in  which  county  all  the  corn  appears  to  have  been  exceedr 
ingly  fine.  From  Mr.  Blount  of  Up-Husband  near  Andover^ 
in  the  same  county,  I  have  a  little  box  of  very  fine  corn. 
Mr.  Blount  planted  twenty-two  rods  of  ground,  and  he  says 
that  he  had  twenty  bushels  of  prime  ears,  which  is  at  the 
rate  of  eighty  bushels  of  shelled  corn  to  the  acre,  or  there- 
abouts ;  that  this  was  not  half  the  produce,  the  rest  being 
brought  in,  stalks  and  all,  and  tossed  down  to  the  cows, 
pigs,  and  poultry.  He  says  that  his  crop  of  corn  was  plun^ 
dered  by  the  boys,  who  found  out  that  the  ears  were 
good  to  eat  when  green -y  just,  I  suppose,  as  the  Disciples 
did,  w^hen  tliey  were  going  up  to  Jerusalem  on  the  Sabbath- 
day.  This  is  a  sort  of  instinctive  task,  that  will  require 
Lord  Brougham's  ^'parish  libraries'' to  correct;  for 
Mr.  Brazier,  of  Worth,  tells  me,  that  the  hop-pickers' 
girls  and  boys  took  a  good  deal  of  his  corn  in  the  hop- 
picking  time. 

Here,  at  Up-flusband,  I  am  v;ithin  a  few  miles  of  the 
hunch  of  Iktle  hard  parishes ;  but  I  must  slip  over  to 
Battle,  in  Sussex,  and  come  back  to  the  hard  parishes 
again.  Ahvays-wlien- we  are  thinking  about  doing  good  to 
the  country,  we,  in  spite  of  ourselves,  ha,ve  some  particular 
part  or  parts  of  it  more  immediately  in  our  eye  than  the 
rest.  When  I  first  contemplated  the  gratuitous  distribution 
of  tlie  corn,  I  had  just  been  in  Hampshire,  and  I  had  gone 
from  Winchester  to  Bullington,  to  see  and  console  the 
widowed  mother  of  those  two  excellent  young  men  the 
Masons.  I  could  not  see  that  bunch  of  parishes  without 
feeling  a  desire  to  do  good  to  the  labourers  there,  refiectincr^ 
as  I  could  not  help^  doing,  on  the  proceedings  of  the  recent 
SPECIAL  COMMISSION.  I  promised  the  widow,  that 
I  would  return  in  May,  to  plant  for  her  a  piece  of  ground 
to  fat  a  pig  or  two,  which  I  afterwards  did  by  Mr.  Exos 
DjD  DAMS,  shoemaker  of  Sutton  Scotney,who  was  so  kind  as 


134  Two-penny  Trash; 

to  be  my  agent  in  the  business.  Returning  home  my  ideas 
expanded.  In  getting  the  parcel  ready  for  Mr.  Diddams, 
it  came  into  my  head  to  send  a  number  of  ears  to  be  dis- 
tributed by  him  to  labourers  in  all  the  parishes  round  about. 
From  that  came  the  notion  of  sending  corn  to  other  persons 
for  distribution  ;  and  hence  the  general  spread  of  the  corn 
over  so  many  counties.  But  next,  after  the  hard  parishes, 
came  into  my  mind,  the  little  town  of  Battle,  in  Sussex j 
and  the  good  and  true  and  virtuous  people  of  its  neigh- 
bourhood. Mr.  James  Outsell,  at  Battle,  who  is  a 
tailor,  with  a  great  deal  more  sense  than  one-half  of  the 
law-makers  that  I  have  ever  known,  was  my  agent  in  the 
distribution ;  and  he  has  now  sent  me  samples  of  corn, 
ticketed  with  the  following  names,  which  I  record  to  his  and 
their  honour.  He  sends  me  two  ears  from  each  grower. 
But  I  must  first  insert  his  letter, 

«^To  Mr.  Wm.  Cobbett. 

,  ''Battle,  Nov, 2?,,  1831. 

'*  Dear  Sir,— The  ears  of  Cobbett-Corn  which  accompany  this 
are  the  produce  of  the  seed  seut  by  you  for  distribution.  They  are 
not  the  very  best  that  were  grown,  but  may  be  taken  as  an  average 
specimen  of  the  crop  in  the  neighbourhood.  In  collecting  the  ears 
J  made  it  a  point  to  collect  also  the  opinions  of  the  growers,  as 
to  its  uses  and  advantages  over  other  grain.  There  is  but  one 
opinion  of  the  advantages  which  a  cultivator  of  it  would  obtain  ia 
point  of  production,  though  there  is  a  difference  respecting  the 
probable  amount  of  an  average  crop.  Some  think  that  100  bushels 
to  the  acre  would  be  a  fair  crop;  others,  particularly  Messrs.  Graw 
and  Gibson,  appear  confident  of  a  bushel  to  the  rod,  that  is,  with 
skilful  management.  The  labourers  are  very  proud  of  it ;  they 
hang  it  up  in  their  windows  as  an  ornament.  I  have  often  thought 
of  the  **  fraud "  when  1  have  seen  it.  I  heard  yesterday,  that 
Mr.  Plumley,  of  Pevensey,  has  this  year  grown  40  bushels  on  a 
quarter  of  an  acre  ;  the  land  there  is  richer  than  it  is  here.  I  have 
received  some  written  opinions  of  some  growers,  one  of  which  (Mr. 
Gibson's,  schoolmaster)  I  send  you  \  and  I  must  add,  that  he  is 
not  the  only  one  who  thinks  it  would  make  good  malt ;  the  same 
thing  had  been  stated  to  me  before  by  men  who  are  better  capable 
of  judging  of  the  matter  than  I  can  pretend  to  be.  You  ask  '  what 
use  the  labourers  make  of  what  they  get.'  They  give  a  little  of  it 
to  their  hogs  by  way  of  experiment  j  and  they  tell  me  *  the  hogs 


1st  December,  1831.  135 

are  crazy  for  it.*  A  few  have  had  some  ground,  and  made  a  loaf 
or  two;  they  like  it  better  than  any  other  substitute  for  wheaten 
flour,  and  they  think  it  would  be  a  most  excellent  thing  in  times 
of  scarcity.  Some  of  the  specimens  which  1  send  have  been  grown 
under  great  disadvantai^es,  being  stuck  under  the  shade  of  a  tree, 
or  squeezed  in  between  potatoes  or  beans.  Another  year  we  shall 
see  it  planted  pretty  generally  in  the  labourers'  gardens  ;  they  keep 
a  great  quantity  to  distribute  to  their  neighbours  ;  next  year  it  will 
share  the  ground  with  the  potatoes,  and  will,  I  have  not  the  least 
doubt,  eventually  supplant  them,  except  as  a  vegetable.  The  an- 
swer I  got  from  nearly  every  one  that  I  questioned  as  to  its  prin- 
cipal goodjwas,  '  hog- fatting.*  A  few  of  the  small  far?ners  intend 
trying  it  next  year.  Even  your  greatest  enemies  think  there  is 
some  good  in  it, 

"  Your  most  obedient  servant, 

**  JAMES  OUTSELL.*' 

I  shall  now  insert  the  names  of  the  growers,  oberving 
that  some  of  the  tickets  appear  to  be  rubbed  off.  Mr.  Gut- 
sell  had  not  the  means  of  making  the  collection  so  extensive 
as  he  would  have  done  if  I  had  given  him  time  to  send  or 
go  into  all  the  villages ;  but,  short  as  the  time  was,  the 
reader  will  see  that  my  endeavours  have  been  attended  with 
great  effects  in  this  quarter  of  this  good,  honest,  spirited 
county.  The  following  is  a  list  of  the  names  of  the  growers 
that  Mr.  Outsell  has  been  able  to  collect  samples  from. 

John  Archer,  shoemaker,  Seddlescomb. 

James  Plumb,  labourer,  Battle. 

Mr.  Gibson,  Robert's-bridge. 

James  Britt,  labourer,  HoUiugton. 

Henry  Hades,  labourer.  Battle. 

James  Child,  Battle. 

Mr,  Henry  Reace,  Seddlescomb. 

Samuel  Britt,  labourer,  Battle, 

Mr.  John  VVeller,  farmer,  Westry. 

John  Waters,  gardener,  Robert's-bridge» 

Edward  Cox,  labourer,  Battle, 

James  Crowhurst,  labourer.  Battle. 

Robert  Parkes,  farmer.  Battle. 

Spencer  Tollhurst,  labourer,  Brede. 

Mr.  Biner,  Seddlescomb. 

John  White,  labourer.  Battle. 

Mr.  Pearson,  Battle. 

William  White,  labourer,  Battle. 

Joha  Crouch,  millwright,  Battle. 


136  Two-PEXNY  Trash; 

• 

Ransom,  labourer,  Battle. 

James  Pepper,  whcelwri-^ht,  Seddlescomb. 

Colshurst,  labourer,  Seddlescoiub. 

Samuel  Siuijock,  shoemakf  r,  Seddle-comb. 

Gruwed  in  Battle  Park,  under  the  direction  of  Lady  Webster. 

Mr.  Gutsell,  if  he  had  had  time,  would  have  sent  into 
the  parishes  more  distant  from  Battle,  to  Buricash^  Croic- 
hurst,  and  all  round  about.  However,  through  his  kind- 
ness, through  his  real  goodness  and  public  spirit,  liere  is 
more  good  done  than  would  be  done  in  a  whole  lifetime  of 
the  great,  gaping,  stupid  LIAR,  if  his  life 'were  to  begin 
again,  and  if  his  intentions  were  as  benevolent  in  the  new 
life  as  they  have  been  malignant  in  this.  I  shall  keep  this 
box  of  Battle  corn,  and  the  box  from  the  hard  parishes, 
to  plant  next  year  as  seed.  Generally  speaking,  it  is  not 
equal,  in  point  of  size  of  ear,  to  some  of  the  corn  that  I  have 
mentioned  before  ;  but  it  is  all  perfectly  sound  and  good. 
I  shall  have  bags  made  to  hold  these  samples  of  corn  from  the 
different  counties  5  and  wliat  a  convenient  thing  one  of  these 
bags,  when  a  third  part  full,  would  be  to  lay  about  the 
head  of  the  great  stupid  LIAR  !  He  would  take  it  quietly, 
I  will  warrant  him.  Let  him  now  go  and  show  himself  in 
any  of  these  counties,  let  him  go  to  that '*e5^a^^,"  of  which 
he  told  .the  poor  Prestonians,  the  other  day,  that  he  had 
\' jvL&t  received  the  re?itsV'  Is  '*  Charley '' Pearson  his 
receiver  I  wonder  ? 

I  now  come  back  to  the  hard  parishes,  in  the  north  of 
Hampshire^  to  which,  as  I  related  before,  I  sent  a  parcel 
of  corn  to  be  distiibuted  by  Mr.  Enos  Did  dams,  shoe- 
maker, of  Sutton  Scotndy,  which  is  a  hamlet,  belonging  to 
the  parish  of  Wunston.  Mr.  Diddams  has  not  had  time 
to  collect  samples  from  more  than  five  or  six  parishes  out  of 
perhaps  twenty,  in  which  the  corn  has  been  growed.  I 
shall  insert  the  list  of  names,  occupations,  and  parishes,  as 
I  did  in  the  case  of  Battle.     But  I  must  first  insert  Mr» 


1st  December,  1831.  137 

DiDDAMs's letter.  I  saw  Mr.  Diddams'scrop  in  the  month  of 
August,  I  am  sure  that  he  had  not  a  rod  and  a  quarter  at 
the  utmost ;  and  he-has,  you  see,  nine  gallons  of  shelled 
corn,  which  is  at  about  the  rate  of  twenty  quarters  to  the 
acre ;  and  I  am  certain  that  this  is-  to  be  done  upon  a  whole 
field  of  good  land  with  skilful  cultivation.  1  insert  the  letter 
to  Mr.  Diddams's  honour,  and  the  list  to  the  honour  of  those 
who  cultivated  the  corn. 

**  VVm.  Cobhett,  Esq.  London. 

*'  Sutton  Scotney,  Nov  23,  1831. 

<^  Sir,—]  shall  send  ofFa  box  to-morr.w  morning  with  all  the  ears 
of  your  com  J  could  collect  of  the  men  J  gave  it  to  last  April.  Most 
of  them  put  the  ticket  to  their  own  corn  themselves  ;  as  you  will  see. 
All  the  corn  has  ripened  excellently,  and  most  of  it  was  gathered 
by  the  llth  of  Octijher.  1  planted  about  one  rod  of  ground,  and 
I  have  got  nine  gallons  of  shelled  corn.  Mr.  Shrimpton  of  Down 
Hurstbourne,  planted  three  rods  of  ground.  He  has  three  bushels  of 
corn.  William  Hunter,  of  Lougparish,  planted  about  one  rod  ;  he 
is  sure  that  he  has  cjuite  a  bubhel  or  more  of  shelled  corn  to  the 
rod  of  ground.  And  a  man  of  the  name  of  Froom,  of  Longparish, 
planted  seven  or  eight  rods  of  ground.  He  sent  word  to  me,  he 
had  about  one  bushel  to  the  rod.  He  had  his  corn  shelled  and 
ground,  and  then  gave  it  to  his  pigs  ;  and  so  did  Hunter,  which  is 
tiie  reason  I  have  not  sent  you  an  ear  or  two  of  corn  from  them. 
You  will  see  two  ears  marked  Francis  Ray,  of  Bullingtou,  and 
Jacob  Ray,  of  Sutton  ;  both  of  whom  planted  about  a  rod  of  ground, 
and  had  a  good  crop.  You  will  see  some  corn  marked  Tho.'Mas 
Bye,  of  Stoke  Charity,  who  planted  about  one  rod  of  ground,  I 
think  the  best  crop  1  ever  saw.  Mrs.  Mason's  corn  is  particularly 
good.  I  gave  corn  to  about  7{)  or  SO  persons  ;  they  generally  planted 
a  row  or  two  in  their  gardens,  except  Lovkll  and  Smith,  at  AVr- 
thingtony  who  planted  a  considerable  piece  of  ground  each.  When 
I  saw  them,  some  weeks  ago,  they  told  me  their  crops  were  ex- 
cellent. There  was  some  planted  at  StrattOfi  a.nd  AJicheidevcr,  b\jit 
I  have  not  had  time  to  go  there  ;  1  hear  it  ripened  well,  and  inJeed 
in  no  one  instance  have  1  heard  it  fail.  You  will  see  two  ears  marked 
Samuel  Phillips,  an  old  Chopstitk,  which  1  woiild  wish  particu- 
larly to  notice  ;  he  is  a  good  old  man,  having  bred  up  a  lari:e 
family  by  hard  labour,  and  now  his  v*^ork  is  not  quite  done.  He 
was  the  first  man  1  applied  to  for  tlie  corn.  I  lold  him  my  in- 
structions from  you  to  give  him  6d.  for  two  years.  He  said,  *  No, 
I  planted  24  corns,  and  1  ha^e  tliese  bunches  of  fine  ears.  I  have 
put  some  short  ones  by  for  seed  and  Mr.  Cohbett,  God  bless  him, 
lie  is  welcome  to  the  whole  of  them  if  he  wishes  it.'  1  will  give  you 
more  particulars  about  the  corn  when  I  write  again.  Please  to 
write  to  rae  as  soon  as  convenient. 

'*  1  am.  Sir,  your  obedient  servant, 

<*  EN05  DID  DAMS." 


138  Two-penny  Trash  5 

Enos  Diddams,  shoemaker,  Sutton  Scotney. 

Thomas  Malt,  labourer,  Bulliugton. 

Jolin  Diddams,  carpenter,  Barton  Stacey. 

Thomas  Bye,  labourer.  Stoke  Charity. 

James  Croucher,  labourer,  Sutton  Scotcey.  ^ 

Georo:e  Forde,  labourer,  Bullington. 

James  Diddanjs,  shoemaker,  Barton  Stacey. 

William  Shrimpton,  Down- Husband. 

Jacob  Ray,  labourer,  Sutton  Scotney. 

Isaac  Farmer,  labourer,  Barton  Stacey. 

Widow  Mason,  Buliiui^ton. 

Antony  Anthony,  tailor.  Barton  Stacey. 

Richard  Withers,  labourer,  Sutton  Scotney. 

John  Hoar,  Sutton  Scotney. 

Thomas  Webb,  bricklayer,  Barton  Stacey. 

Mrs.  Tarrant,  Barton  Stacey. 

Thomas  Melsom,  Sutton  Scotney. 

Mr.  Jacob  Cotton,  Barton  Stacey. 

John  Basten,  labourer,  Bullington. 

Samuel  Phillips,  an  old  worn-out  chopstick,  Sutton  Scotney. 

fieor^e  Ball,  labourer,  Barton  Stacey. 

William  Bye,  labourer,  Sutton  Scotney. 

Francis  Ray,  labourer,  Bullington. 

William  Goodhall,  labourer,  Barton  Stacey. 

William  Lock,  labourer,  Barton  Stacey. 

Daniel  Harmswood,  Sutton  Scotney. 

Widow  Ireland,  Sutton  Scotney. 

John  Twinney  Cooper,  Sutton  Scotney. 

Richard  Cleverly,  labourer,  Barton  Stacey. 

William  Shrimpton  writes  me  a  letter  himself,  and  tells 
me  that  he  sent  me  two  very  fine  ears  by  the  guard  of  one 
of  the  coaches,  but  that  the  guard  told  him  he  had  lost  them 
on  the  road  !  A  very  good  hint  never  to  trust  to  guards 
again ;  for,  though  they  may  be  very  good  guards  of  other 
things,  they  do  not  seem  to  have  much  ability  in  guarding 
the  ears  of  corn.  Shrimpton,  who  lives  very  near  to  the 
spot  where  the  Liar  used  once  to  swagger  about  as  lord 
of  the  manor,  relates;  at  the  close  of  his  letter,  a  very  pretty 
fact  concerning  THE  Liar;  which  fact  he  will  relate  to 
the  Liar's  face,  if  he  dare  to  show  that  face  in  Hampshire 
again.  1  hope  that  I  have  not  omitted  to  notice  any  com- 
munication that  I  have  received  upon  this  subject.  I  very 
much  wished  to  insert  the  whole  of  the  details  expressed  on 
the  tickets  of  the  various  parcels  ;  but  I  found  it  impossible 


1st  December,  1831.  139 

to  do  this  within  the  space  that  I  have  at  my  command.  I 
have  done  this  in  the  cases  oi  Battle,  and  of  the  hard  pa- 
rishes, for  several  reasons  :  in  the  case  of  Battle,  because  the 
excellent  people  of  that  town  and  neighbourhood  acted  so  just 
and  manly  a  part  in  the  case  of  Thomas  Goodman,  and, 
by  acting  that  part,  blowed  to  atoms  that  foul  conspiracy 
against  my  liberty  and  life,  in  which  the  bloody  old  Times 
was  a  conspicuous  actor ;  in  the  case  of  the  hard  parishes, 
because  from  them  those  two  excellent  young  men  the 
Masons  were  taken  and  sent  from  their  widowed  mother 
for  life:  and,  in  both  cases,  because  the  cultivators  of  the 
corn  have  been  almost  exclusively  labouring  men.  I  am 
equally  obliged  by  the  kindness  of  those  gentlemen  who  have 
sent  me  ticketed  corn  from  other  parts ;  but  I  trust  that 
they  will  see  the  reasonableness  of  the  motives  from  which 
the  distinction  has  arisen. 

Now,  then,  we  have  it  incontestably  proved,  that  this  corn 
will  flourish  in  all  the  soils  and  in  every  degree  of  climate  in 
this  kingdom.  I  have  samples  from  Bungay,  in  Suffolk,  to 
Berkeley,  in  Gloucestershire  ;  and  from  Pevensey  Level  to 
Paisley.  I  have  it  from  all  soils;  marsh,  loam,  gravel, 
clay,  sand,  and  chalk.  The  ears  are  longest  and  biggest 
upon  the  fat  land  ;  but  there  appears  to  be  no  better,  closer, 
or  sounder  corn  than  that  grown  in  the  hard  parishes,  which 
is  a  flinty  soil  at  top^  and  chalk  at  bottom. 

WILLIAM  COBBETT. 

TO    THE 

FARMERS  AND  TRADESMEN, 

ON    THE 

ARMING   OF   PERSONS    OF   PROPERTY. 


Kensington,  2oih  Noveynher,  1831. 
Farmers  and  Tradesmen, 

The  winter  before  last.    Lord   Stanhope   said,  in  his 

place  in  the  House  of  Peers,  that  there  was  rising  up,  in 


140  '       Two-penny  Trash; 

the  country  a  general  hatred  of  the  poor  towards  the  rich  ; 
and  he  suggested  the  propriety  of  measures  being  adopted 
in  time  to  correct  this  mighty  evil.  It  was  not  rising  up  : 
it  had  risen  up  long  before.  It  is  indeed  an  evil  far  sur- 
passing i^  magnitude  any  other  that  I  can  conceive:  it  has 
led  to  all  the  horrible  scenes  which  we  have  been  beholding 
during  the  last  fifteen  months  ;  and  yet  never  do  we  hear 
from  any  persons,  in  povver^  anything  to  make  us  hope  that 
they  mean  to  propose  anything  tending  to  put  a  stop  to  this 
evil,  of  which  they  do  not  appear  to  have  the  smallest  idea 
of  the  real  cause. 

Totally  ignorant  of  the  causes  of  the  evil,  they  look  upon 
all  the  discontents  of  the  working  people  as  being  unreason* 
able  and  unjust  ;  rejecting  all  the  evidence  of  facts,  they 
attribute   the   loud  complaints   and   the  violent  acts  of  the 
working  people  entirely  to  their  bad  disposition ;  to  their 
laziness,  their  greediness,  their  dishonest  propensities;  and, 
which  is  very  curious,  they,  at  one  and    the  same  time, 
ascribe  their  violent  acts  to  want  of  education  and  to  the 
reading  of  cheap  publications.     The  fable  of  the  town  in 
danger  of  being  taken  by  an  enemy  tells  us,  that,  upon  a 
consultation  amongst  the  tradesmen  upon  the  best  means  of 
defending  the  ton^n,  the  Tanner  said,  "  If  you  have  a  mind 
*'  to  have  the  town  well  secured,  take  my  mind  for  it  there 
*•  is  nothing  like  leather;"  and   we  now  hear  the  publishers 
of  the  London  daily  papers,  whenever  they  hear  of  a  riot  or 
a  fire  ;  whenever  they  hear  of  a  workhouse-keeper's  or  an 
overseer's   head  being  broken,    or   a  tread-mill  being  de- 
molished, burst  out  in  indignant  rage,  that  the  poor  creatures 
that  commit  the  violences  cannot  get  a  London  broadsheet 
to  read.     Jadsrinjr  from  my  own  feelings,  I  should  say  that 
it  is  hajpy  for  the  grinders  and  the  starvers  that  the  work- 
ing people  do  not  get  these  sheets  to  read  ;  for  the  effect 
which  the  reading  of  them  has  upon  me  invariably,  is  to  fill 
me   with  reveno:e  and   with   rage  ;  and  to  such  a  degree, 


IsT  December,  1831.      *  141 

that,  if  I  could  be  induced  to  set  fire,  the  reading  of  these, 
at  once  stupid  and  atrocious  publications,  would  urge  me  on 
to  the  act;  and  operating  on  me  as  the  music  of  Timotheus 
did  upon  Alexander,  I  really  am  ready,  sometimes,  upon 
flinging  down  their  mass  of  j-aragraphs,  to  seize  a  flambeau, 
and  rush  out  to  burn  up  the  whole  of  this  infernal  Wen  ; 
this  collection  of  filth,  moral  as  well  as  physical ;  this 
poisoner  of  the  mind  and  destroyer  of  the  bodies  of  the 
whole  kingdom;  but,  above  all  things,  this  collection  and 
amalgamation  of  literary  conceit,  corruption,  and  stupidity. 

Never  looking  at  the  true  causes  of  the  evil ;  brutal 
enough  to  believe  that  the  people  would  have  their  minds 
changed  and  be  made  as  quiet  as  they  were  formerly,  by 
being  generally  what  these  stupid  men  call  educated  ;  beino* 
brutal  enough  to  believe  this,  at  the  same  time  that  thev 
are  making  reports  v.hich  show  that,  where  one  workino- 
man  could  read  and  write  formerly,  twenty  can  now  :  beino- 
30  stupid  as  this;  but  finding  that  the  education,  as  they 
•call  it,  does  not  tend  to  produce  that  submission  which  they 
teach,  they  have  recourse  to  the  last  remedy  know^n  to  the 
minds  of  such  m.en ;  namely,  to  punishment  in  all  its 
shapes,  forms,  and  degrees  of  severity.  Jails  of  a  new 
«ort;  dungeons  of  a  new  sort ;  hanging  in  a  new  fashion 
and  in  new  places,  and  in  some  cases  on  the  tops  of  the 
new  jails;  the  treadmill,  the  hulks,  and  an  endless  variety 
of  new  modes  of  inflicting  punishment.  The  prooress  has 
been  very  curious.  As  the  taxes  increased,  the  working- 
people  became  poor  and  miserable.  Exactly  in  proportion 
to  the  increase  of  taxes  has  been  the  increase  of  the  poverty 
and  the  misery ;  exactly  in  proportion  to  these  has  beea 
the  increase  of  larcenies  and  felonies.  The  old  laws  pro- 
vided imprisonment  and  transportation  for  the  larger  part 
of  these ;  but  a  prison  was  a  paradise  compared  to  star- 
YatioD  and  sleeping  under  a  hedge;  and,  tjiorgh  transpoi- 


]42  Two-penny  Trash; 

tation  took  a  man  from  his  kindred  and  friends,  it  took  him 
also  to  something  to  eat,  and  to  drink,  and  to  wear.  -To 
the  prison,  therefore,  the  dungeon  and  the  treadmill  were 
added,  as  improvements  of  the  age  ;  and,  instead  of  trans- 
portation, it  became  necessary  in  numerous  cases  to  inflict 
death.  To  check  rioting  and  poaching,  Ellen  borough's 
act,  improved  by  Lansdown,  made  it  death  even  to  strike 
a  man,  without  doing  him  any  bodily  harm,  if  the  jury 
should  determine  that  the  striking  was  with  intent  to  do 
him  grievous  bodily  harm.  It  was  upon  this  act  that 
Henry  Cook,  the  ploughman  of  Micheldever,  was 
hanged  for  striking  Bingham  Baring.  Cook  was  one  of 
a  party  of  labourers  who  were  going  about  demolishing 
thrashing-machines.  Bingham  Baring,  with  a  party  of 
his  men,  went  up  to  the  party  to  which  Cook  belonged  and 
seized  one  of  them  by  the  collar,  upon  which  Cook,  with  a 
little  sled  ore- hammer,  which  he  was  carrying  about  for  the 
purpose  of  demolishing  machines,  gave  Baring  a  blow, 
which  did  him  no  bodily  harm  whatever,  he,  Baring,  being 
out  on  horseback  the  next  day.  For  this  Cook  was  hanged 
by  the  neck  till  he  was  dead,  prosecuted  by  Denman  and 
Wild,  and  sentenced  to  death  by  Vaughan,  the  two 
other  judges  being  Park  and  Alders  ox,  with  whom 
were  associated  in  this  Special  Commission,  Denman, 
Wild,  Wellington,  Pollen,  and  Sturges  Bourne. 

I  could  enumerate,  if  I  had  time,  more  than  three  hun- 
dred instances,  in  which  the  criminal  code  has  been 
hardened  during  the  time  that  Sir  Jemmy  Mackintosh 
has  been  receiving  the  praises  of  the  hypocrites  and  fools 
for  the  softening  which  he  has  produced  in  it.  At  last,  the 
very  word  liberty,  as  applied  ,to  the  state  of  things  in  Eng- 
land, has  become  ridiculous.  Peel's  new  trespass  law  has 
made  it  unsafe  for  any  poor  man  to  set  his  foot  upon  any 
spot  of  earth  except  the  mere  highway.     Suppose  an  En- 


1st  December,  1831.  143 

glishman  to  be  walking  along  the  turnpike-road^  and_,  pressed 
by  feelings  of  nature  and  decency,  to  get  over  the  gate  of  a 
field ;  slap  comes  the  farmer,  under  Peel's  new  trespass 
law,  seizes  him  by  the  throat,  and  drags  him  away  as  a 
malefactor.  To  shun  the  penalties  of  Peel,  he  is  compelled 
to  set  decency  at  defiance ;  but,  as  nature  will  not  be  defied, 
he  reluctantly  yields  to  an  exposure  of  the  person  ;  slap 
comes  the  informer  with  Chetwind's  exposure  act  in  his 
hand,  and  off  he  drags  him  to  ^ne  and  imprisonment. 
Duly  sensible  of  both  these  dangers,  on  he  goes  carrying 
with  him  the  consequences  of  his  salutary  fears  3  and  slap 
comes  upon  the  surveyor  of  the  highways,  who  indicts  him 
as  a  filthy  nuisance ;  so  that,  of  all  the  slaves  that  the 
earth  was  ever  ashamed  to  bear,  the  free-born  Englishman 
is  become  the  most  perfect. 

Yet,  to  carry  on  the  system  of  pension,  sinecure,  grant, 
retired  allowance,  debt,  and  dead -weight,  such  abrogation 
of  the  liberties  of  the  people  was  absolutely  necessary  :  it  is 
impossible  for  a  people  to  enjoy  anything  worthy  of  the 
name  of  civil  liberty,  and  to  be  made  to  live  upon  potatoes 
at  the  same  time :  that  is  impossible :  it  is  impossible  to 
make  English  working  people  live  upon  potatoes  without 
Peel's  new  felony  laws.  Peel's  new  trespass  laws  ;  with- 
out Ellenborough's  and  Lansdown's  act,  and  without  a 
standing  army  in  time  of  peace,  as  great,  or  greater  than  in 
time  of  war.  But  even  these  are  not  sufficient ;  for,  in 
comparison  with  starvation,  English  people  will  set]  even 
hanging  at  defiance,  besides  which  hanging  the  parties  will 
not  restore  that  which  they  have  taken  away.j^^^  So  that,  at 
last,  it  becomes  necessary  to  superintend  their|  movements 
day  and  night.  Hence  the  half-military  police,  of  which 
there  are  now  thousands  prowling  about  this  hellish  and  all- 
devouring  Wen.  Hence  the  new  and  monstrous  power  of 
swearing  in  special  constables,  and  thus  enrolling,  before- 
hand,  the  tradesmen  in  towns,  against  the  [working  people 


144    Two-penny  Tkasii  ;  1st  Decf.mber,  1831. 

in  the  towns.  Even  this  is  now  found  not  to  be  enoush : 
and,  therefore,  there  are  projects  for  actually  arming  per- 
sons of  property  in  the  towns;  actually  furnishing  them  with 
arms  by  the  government  ! 

And,  FOPt  WHAT  is  all  this  1     For  what  have  we  now 
a   permanent    standing    army  of   more    than    a    hundred 
thousand  men  ?     For  what  have  we  yeomanry  cavalry    corps 
paid  out  of  the  taxes  ?     Against  whom  are  persons  of  pro- 
perty  in  the   towns  now  to   be  armed  ?     The  yeomanry 
cavalry   and  the   volunteering    in   the    brilliant    times    of 
Pitt,  Dundas,  and  Grenville,  men  could  understand. 
Fools  regarded  them  as  necessary  in  Yorkshire  to  keep  the 
French  from  landing  in  Sussex  and  Kent.      Fools  regarded 
them  as  absolutely  necessary  to  keep  Atheism  out  of  Eng- 
land.    Men  of  experience  and  sense  looked  upon  the  dread 
of    the    French    as  a  mere    pretence    for  these    armings, 
and  also  for  bringing  the  German  troops  into  England  and 
Ireland  ;  but,  at  any  rate,  there  w^as  a  pretence,  which  there 
is  not  now.    If  you  asked  the  government  then  w'hat  all  that 
arming  was  for;  why  farmers  and  tradesmen  were  turned 
into  soldiers,  the  answer  was,  '^  The  French  !  the  French  /^' 
That  was  the  answer   of  Pttt,  Dundas,   and   Gren- 
ville; but,  Lord  Grey,  I  ask  you,  what  this  thundering 
army  in  time  of  peace  is  for ;  what  have  you  augmented 
that  army  for ;  what  are  the  yeomanry  cavalry  for  ;  what 
are  the  town  armings  for ;  what,  for  instance,  is  that  of 
Chelsea  for,  w^here  the  plan,  signed  by  two  of  your  Magis- 
trates^  is  to  exclude  all  men  who  are  not  renters  or  owners 
to   the  amount  of  twenty  pounds  a  year?     What  are  all 
these  armings  for  ?     Against  w^hom    is  all   this   arming  ? 
You   cannot   answer:  you  could  if  you   would,   but   you 
will  not. 

Wm.  cobbett. 


[Primed  b^  Wm.  CobbeU,  Johusou's-court,  i'ket-streei.] 


No.  7.  Vol.  II. 


COBBETT'S 

TWO-PENNY  TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  January,  1832. 


Published  monthly ,  sold  at  I2s.  a  hundred,  arid  for  300,  taken  at 

once,  lis. 


TO  THE  YEOMANRY  CAVALRY: 
ON  THE  FIRES. 


I  CANNOT  call  yon  friends,  and  I  will  not  call  you  gentle* 
men.  This  plague  of  the  country  is  now  raging  with  greater 
fury  than  ever,  and  I  think  proper  to  address  you  upon  the 
subject  You  are  called  yeomanry  cavalry  ;  though  per- 
haps more  than  one  half  of  you  are  loan-mongers,  tax- 
gatherers,  dead-weight  people,  stock-jobbers,  .  shag-bag 
attorneys,  bailiffs  (mostly  Scotch),  toad-eating  shopkeepers, 
•who  are  ready  to  perform  military  duty  towards  the  "  lower 
orders,'^  in  order  at  once  to  give  evidence  of  your  gentility, 
and  to  show  your  gratitude  towards  your  rich  customers  for 
their  paying  your  long  bills  without  scruple.  A  very  great 
part  of  you  come  in  under  one  or  the  other  part  of  this  de- 
scription ;  but  to  those  of  you  who  are  farmers ;  that  is  to  say 
who  have  land  in  your  occupation  ;  and  who  grow  corn,  and 
rear  cattle,  and  who  have  barns,  ricks,  and  other  things, 
liable  to  be  set  fire  to  ;  to  you  only  do  I  address  myself  upoa 

LOiNOON  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street  j 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 

H 


146  Two-penny  Trash; 

this  occasion,  being  well  aware  that  my  arguments  would 
produce  no  impression  whatever  upon  your  comrades  above- 
mentioned.  First  of  all,  call  the  roll  of  your  corps  over,  and 
see  how  many  of  them  there  are  who  are  not  interested  in 
the  taxes  and  the  tithes,  either  immediately  or  through  their 
relations,  landlords,  or  somebody  else.  When  you  have 
called  the  roll,  and  have  separated  yourselves  from  the  rest, 
get  into  a  plain  room,  pull  off  your  hairy  caps,  your  parti- 
coloured jackets,  and  your  Wellington-boots ;  put  on  your 
own  Christian-like  clothes,  your  high  shoes  well  nailed  ;  and 
then  pick  out  some  one  ^ith  a  good  strong  voice  to  read  to 
you  that  which  I  am  now  about  to  write. 

You  are  not  philosophers;  but  you  have  memories;  you 
have  eyes  in  the  front  of  your  head,  ears  on  the  side  of  it, 
and,  generally  speaking,  you  have  brains  wherewith  to  ena- 
ble you  to  draw  rational  conclusions  from  the  facts  which 
have  been  communicated  to  those  brains  by  the  eyes  and  the 
ears,  and  which  have  been  retained  there  by  those  powers  of 
memory  with  which  God  has  been  pleased  to  endow  you. 

The  FIRES  are  blazing  more  furiously  than  they  were 
last  year  at  this  time.  You  go  to  bed  in  fear,  and  do  not 
yide  home  from  market,  or  from  a  neighbour's  house,  without 
apprehension;  you  are  compelled  to  have  ^  war  cf  5  or  watches 
to  see  to  the  safety  of  your  property  ;  in  some  parts  of  Norfolk 
you  have  entered  into  associations  to  burden  your  land  with 
a  tax  at  so  much  an  acre,  in  order  to  give  rewards  to  such 
men  or  women  as  shall  assist  in  bringing  their  neighbours  to 
the  gallows;  and,  lastly,  to  the  neglect  of  your  business, 
you  have  enrolled  yourselves  as  soldiers,  mounted  your 
horses  which  ought  to  be  at  plough,  and  armed  yourselves 
with  deadly  weapons,  in  order,  if  need  be,  to  wound  or 
kill  somebody  or  other. 

This  being  your  state,  and  this  state  being  hell  upon  earth, 
if  ever  there  was  hell  upon  earth,  it  is  worth  while  for  you 


1st  January,  1832.  147 

to  consider  a  little,  whether  your  dressing  yourselves  out, 
and  arming  yourselves  in  this  manner,  be  at  all  likely  to  put 
a  stop  to  the  fires  5  because  as  to  any  other  immediate  evil, 
you  appear  not  to  be  afflicted  with  it.  If  your  swaggering 
about  with  hairy  caps  on  your  heads  could  possibly  tend  to 
put  out  the  fires,  even  then  I  should  despise  you ;  but  it 
has  not  that  tendency,  and  it  has  a  directly  contrary  tend- 
ency; and  I  am  perfectly  convinced,  as  every  reflecting  man 
must  be,  that  the  very  existence  of  a  corps  of  yeomanry  in 
a  neighbourhood,  in  time  of  peace,  has  a  direct  and  natural 
tendency  to  produce  these  fires ;  and  this  you  will  see 
clearly,  if  you  will  but  cast  aside  the  instigating  falsehoods 
of  your  loan-mongering  and  tax-eating  and  petty-fogging 
comrades,  and  listen  to  your  own  reason. 

You  have  seen  all  your  lifetime,  that  nine  tenths  of  the 
hostile  and  vindictive  proceedings  of  men,  proceed  from 
provocation  arising  from  words  or  acts  of  challenge,  threat, 
or  defiance.  Even  a  dog  will  let  you  go  by  him  quietly, 
until  he  sees  you  take  up  a  stick  or  a  stone ;  and  does  not 
the  very  existence  of  your  corps  speak  a  threat  to  the 
labourers  1  Does  not  the  bare  sight  of  it  tell  them,  that  you 
mean  to  shoot  them  or  chop  them  down,  if  they  do  not 
quietly  submit  to  live  upon  what  all  the  world  says  is  insuf- 
ficient? You  do  not  tell  them  in  words,  that  you  will  shoot 
them,  or  chop  them  down ;  but  your  swaggering  hairy  cape 
tell  them  so;  aye,  and  it  has  been  over  and  over  again 
stated  in  speeches  in  Parliament,  that  the  object  of  embody- 
ing you  is  to  repress  disturbance  in  your  counties  ;  and  have 
you  so  great  a  contempt  for  the  understandings  of  the  work- 
ing people  as  to  imagine  that  they  do  not  fully  comprehend 
the  meaning  of  these  words?  Will  a  parcel  of  labourers, 
working  in  a  farm-yard,  see  the  farmer  mount  his  cavalry 
horse,  and  go  swaggering  out  with  pistols  in  holster,  and 
sword  by  side;  are  you  such  jolterheads  as  to  imagine,  that 

H  2 


148  Two-penny  Trash; 

they  do  not  ask  one  another  what  that  can  be  for?  They 
know  that  the  swaggering  blade  ought  to  stay  at  home  3  they, 
better  than  anybody,  know  how  much  his  absence  will  cost 
him  ;  and  they  discuss  amongst  themselves,  to  be  sure,  what 
can  be  the  motive  of  his  thus  acting,  at  which  motive  they 
arrive  by  a  process  of  reasoning,  the  brevity  of  which  is  not 
less  admirable  than  the  conclusion  on  their  minds  is  im- 
pressive. 

In  time  of  war,  indeed,  there  might  have  existed  in  their 
minds  doubts,  with  regard  to  this  motive.  Then  they  were 
told,  that  the  yeomanry  corps  w^ere  destined  to  fight  the 
French,  if  they  should  land,  which  French,  they  were 
told,  would,  if  not  defeated,  come  and  take  from  them,  not 
only  their  potatoes  and  water,  but  also  the  chastity  of  their 
W'ives  and  daughters,  and  their  belief  in  the  Christian  re- 
ligion into  the  bargain.  When,  therefore,  the  labourer's 
wife  saw  th'^  fat-jowled  yeomanry  cavalry  man  prancing 
along  by  her  cottage,  she  was  filled,  stupidly  enough  to  be 
sure,  with  feelings  of  admiration  at  the  self-devotion  of  the 
patriotic  defender.  But,  NOW,  at  the  end  of  Sixteen 
years  of  profound  peace,  with  the  word  war  never  pro- 
nounced, and  having  almost  lost  its  meaning,  even  the 
women,  who  used  to  terrify  their  children  with  the  name  of 
^^BoNY,"  must  be  filled  with  astonishment,  to  see  the 
Government,  especially  when  it  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
liberty 'loving  Whigs,  calling  out  corps  of  yeomanry  cavalry. 
As  if  for  the  express  purpose  of  making  the  thing  complete, 
the  yeomanry  corps  were  disbanded  in  the  year  1827,  as 
being  unnecessary  in  time  of  peace,  and  especially  in  the 
agricultural  counties*  To  behold  them  rise  up  again  now, 
especially  after  the  riots  of  last  year,  what  must  be  the  con- 
clusion in  the  minds  of  the  labourers?  Why,  they  know  to 
a  certainty  that  the  corps  are  raised  to  make  them  submit 
to  that  which  they  would  not  submit  to  without  compulsion ; 


1st  January,  1832.  149 

they  know  that,  scattered  and  divided  as  they  are,  they 
cannot  resist  that  force;  but  this  does  not  make  them  love 
those  who  exercise  the  force ;  but  on  the  contrary,  fills  them 
with  hostility  to  a  degree  which  they  did  not  before  enter- 
tain, and  produces  in  their  breasts  revenge  which  otherwise 
never  would  have  existed  there,  and  that  revenge  stimulates 
them  to  deeds,  at  the  thought  of  which  they  would  other- 
wise have  startled  with  horror.  The  whole  of  the  history 
of  this  horrid  plague  lies  in  a  very  few  words.  By  orders 
of  magistrates ;  by  evidence  given  before  the  House  of  Com- 
mons ;  by  numerous  documents  of  character  the  most  authen- 
tic, it  has  been  proved,  that  the  labourers  have,  especially 
since  the  passing  of  Sturges  Bourne's  bills,  been  reduced  to  a 
state,  and  to  a  manner  of  living,  beneath  those  of  hounds  and 
pointers ;  that  they  have  been  treated  with  the  greatest  pos- 
sible harshness  and  insolence ;  that  hired  overseers  have  beea 
set  over  them  to  make  them  draw  carts  and  wagons,  and 
otherwise  to  treat  them  as  beasts  of  burden  ;  that  old  men, 
little  boys,  and  women,  have  been  harnessed  and  worked  in 
this  way ;  that  men  have  been  put  up  at  auction  and  sold 
for  length  of  time  to  labour  for  the  highest  bidder ;  that 
husbands  and  wives  have  been  forcibly  separated,  as  the 
males  and  females  of  live  stock  are,  in  order  to  prevent  the 
natural  consequences  of  co-habitation;  that  young  w^omen 
applying  for  relief  have  been,  by  the  lured  overseer,  by  this 
salaried  hireling  and  his  myrmidons,  laid  upon  the  floor,  held 
down  by  force,  and  have  had  the  long  hair  cut  from  their 
heads  with  shears,  as  wool  is  cut  from  the  body  of  the  sheep; 
and  that  they  have  been  compelled  to  submit  to  this,  or  ta 
starve,  or  to  become  prostitutes. 

You  cannot  deny,  that  such  has  been  the  barbarous  treat- 
ment of  the  labourers  and  their  families ;  and  your  land- 
lords, while  they  have  been  moulding  four  farms  into  one  for 
their  own  profit,  have  not  only  connived  at  all  this^  but  have 


150  Two-penny  Trash; 

upheld  you  in  it,  in  their  capacity  of  magistrates  and  parsons. 
The  labourers  know  well,  that  it  is  unjust  to  treat  them  thus: 
common  sense  tells  them  that  God  never  intended  that  those 
who  raise  all  the  food,  who  make  to  be  all  the  clothing,  all 
the  fuel,  and  all  the  houses,  should  be  turned  out  into  the 
wild  waste  to  perish  with  hunger  and  with  cold.     Common 
sense  tells  them  that  God  never  intended  that  they  should  be 
fed  worse  than  gentlemen's  dogs,  lodged  far  worse  than  those 
dogs,  and  treated  worse  than  the  least  valuable  of  farmers* 
horses.     When  they  read  the  Bil^le,  or  hear  it  read,  which 
they  all  do,  they  find,  from  one  end  of  the  book  to  the  other, 
the  most  positive  commands  of  the  rich  to  treat  the  labourers 
well,  to  consider  them  as  brothers,  by  no  means  to  keep  from 
them  a  suflSciency  of  food  and  of  raiment ;  and  they  find 
endless   denunciations  against  those  who   have  the  hard* 
hearted ness  to  disobey  these  commands.    They  find  God  com** 
manding  that  even  the  ox  was  to  share  in  the  produce  of  the 
harvest ;  that  even  he  was  not  to  be  muzzled  while  treading 
out  the  corn;  they  find  God  forbidding  the  employer  to  keep 
back  the  wages  of  a  labourer  even  for  a  day ;  they  find  Him 
commanding  the  master,  at  the  end  of  the  labourer's  servi- 
tude, to  send  him  away  amply  provided  for  out  of  his  gran- 
ary, his  flocks,  and  his  wine-press ;  they  find  Him  denounc- 
ing vengeance  and  punishment  on  the  oppressors  of  the  widow 
and  the  orphan,  those  who  drove  the  needy  stranger  from  the 
gate,  and  particularly  on  those  who  should  lay  "  Aows-    tc^ 
house  and  field  to  fields  so  as  to  cause  the  poor  of  the  la'^d 
iofaiiy     They  find  Him  threatening  miseries  unspeakable 
upon  those  who  should  grudge  to  give  the  labourer  his  due 
hire.     They  have  read,  or  heard  read,  the  following  passage 
in  the  epistle  of  St.  James,  which  Luther,  the  founder  of 
this    Church-of- England  religion,    **  called  an  epistle  oj- 
straw y     You  seem  to  think  it  an  epistle  of  straw  too;  but 
remember  the  labourers  have  all  heard  it  read ;  and  they 


it 


a 


xi 


Jst  January,  1832.  151 

know  that  if  that  be  straw,  all  the  rest  of  the  book  is  straw; 
and  that  then  all  that  the  parsons  tell  them  about  Christianity 
isl-  ti  farce.  I  advise  you,  however,  not  to  consider  it  as 
straw ;  but  to  consider  it  as  valuable  grain  ^  and  that  yoa* 
may  have  it  to  read,  here  it  is  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  the  epis- 
tle of  St.  James.  **  Go  to  now,  ye  rich  men,  weep  and  howl 
^^  for  your  miseries  which  shall  come  upon  you.  Your  riches 
^*^are  corrupted,  and  your  garments  are  moth-eaten.  Your 
"  gold  and  silver  is  cankered  ;  and  the  rust  of  them  shall  be 
for  a  testimony  against  you,  and  shall  eat  your  flesh  like 
fire.  You  have  stored  up  to  yourselves  wrath  against  the 
"  last  days.  Behold,  the  hire  of  the  labourers  who  have^ 
reaped  down  your  fields,  which  by  fraud  has  been  kept 
back  by  you,  crieth  ;  and  the  cry  of  them  hath  entered 
**  into  the  ears  of  the  Lord  of  sabaoth.  You  have  feasted 
"  upon  earth :  and  in  riotousness  you  have  nourished  your 
"hearts,  in  the  day  of  slaughter.  You  have  condemned' 
'^  and  put  to  death  the  just,  and  he  resisted  you  not." 

You  may  be  well  assured  that  the  labourers  all  understand 
this.  They  have  read  too,  or  have  had  it  read  to  them,  that^ 
the  children  of  Israel  were  ill-treated  by  the  Egyptians ; 
that  they  had  task-masters  set  over  them,  who  compelled 
them  to  make  bricks  without  straw,  though  we  are  not  told 
that  they  made  them  draw  wagons  and  carts  like  beasts  of 
burden;  they  have  read  that  Moses,  seeing  one  of  these 
villanous  taskmasters  strike  one  of  his  brethren,  he  looked 
about  him,  this  way  and  that  way,  and  seeing  no  one  there, 
he  slew  the  taskmaster,  and  buried  him  in  the  sand ;  and 
they  have  read,  that  after  this  Moses  became  the  servant  of 
the  Lord,  and  the  leader  and  the  guide  of  his  people. 

Besides  this  the  labourers  well  know  that  the  tithes  were 
not  given  for  the  parsons  alone  ;  but  that  they  belong  to  the 
J>ublic  generally,  and  particularly  to  the  poor :  they  know 
that  by  the  ecclesiastical  law,  by  the  common  law  of  Eng- 


152  Two-penny  Trash; 

land,  and  by  the  statute  law  of  England,  that  every  indigent 
person  has  as  much  right  to  relief  out  of  the  tithes,  whether 
clerical  or  lay,  as  any  landlord  has  to  his  rents,  or  as  any 
farmer  has  to  the  stock  upon  his  farm. 

Thus  taught  by  common  sense,  by  the  word  of  God,  and 
by  the  w^ell-known  laws  of  the  land,  they  demand  that  they 
shall  not  be  compelled  to  live  upon  potatoes,  while  you  are 
living  on  the  best  of  meat  and  bread,  and  have  beer  and  wine 
always  on  your  table,  and  are  dressed  in  the  best  of  clothing* 
Your  answer  to  them  is :  We  do  not  want  your  labour  j  to 
which  they  reply,  Give  us  then  some  of  the  produce  without 
labour,  or  give  to  us  some  of  the  numerous  farms,  four^ 
five,  or  ten  of  which  you  have  turned  into  one;  at  any  rate^ 
give  us  relief  according  to  the  law.  To  prevent  this  tha 
Parliament  changes  the  laws ;  it  enables  you  to  set  hired 
overseers  over  them,  who  treat  them  in  the  manner  before 
described;  till  at  last  all  relief  is  pretty  nearly  refused.. 
After  long  endurance  they  assemble  in  groups,  arm  them* 
selves  with  clubs  and  with  hammefs,  and  go  about  com- 
pelling you  to  promise  to  raise  their  wages;  and  here  and 
there  the}'^  ask  for  money  from  you  and  the  parsons,  to  get 
them  some  victuals  and  drink.  For  the  former  they  are  im- 
prisoned  for  great  length  of  time ;  for  the  latter  they  are  con* 
demned  to  death,  some  of  them  transported  for  life,  and 
others  of  them  hanged  ;  though  in  the  whole  course  of  their 
proceedings  they  have  neither  shed  a  drop  of  blood,  nor  in- 
flicted a  wound.  Fearing  the  natural  consequences  of  this; 
Damely,  a  more  general  rising  and  more  violent  proceedings, 
you  arm  yourselves,  mount  your  horses,  form  yourselves  into 
military  corps,  assume  a  menacing  attitude,  and  prance  over 
the  country.  They,  on  their  part,  unable  to  collect  into  large 
bodies,  and  unprovided  with  sharp  and  deadly  instruments, 
see  that  they  cannot  answer  your  threats  by  open  defiance 
and  attack ;  but  they  know  that  there  is  one  destructive  ele- 


1st  January,  1832.  153 

ment,  one  irresistible  arm  always  at  their  command  ;  and, 
thus  reduced  to  extremity,  this  arm  they  are  now  emplo}^ing 
with  the  most  deadly  effect,  as  every  newspaper  from  the 
country  is  now  proclaiming  to  the  world.  Against  this  arm, 
which  they  employ  at  their  convenience,  and  with  not  the 
smallest  danger  to  themselves,  you  have  no  possible  de- 
fence ;  and  this  curse  to  you,  and  disgrace  to  the  country, 
must  go  on  until  the  cause  he  removed. 

Here  then  you  have  the  fires  traced  to  the  real  source. 
It  is  very  true,  that,  while  the  present  taxes  and  tithes  exist, 
you  have  not  the  means  of  duly  rewarding  your  labourers ; 
but  this  is  what  you  never  tell  them-,  your  answer  to  them 
is,  that  they  ought  not  to  have  more  than  they  get :  and 
therefore  they  are  at  issue  with  you  ;  and  they  are  not  called 
upon  by  reason  to  look  any  further  than  to  you.     You  are  at 
your  wit's  end  :  offering  rewards  is  of  no  use ;  setting  guards 
and  watches  is  of  no  use;  arming  yourselves  is  of  no  use; 
the   labourers  have  determined    to  live  upon    potatoes  no 
longer ;  and  live  upon  potatoes  they  will  not.     A  writer  in  a 
stupid  and  base  paper,  called  the  Norwich  Mercury^  which 
appears  to  be  edited  by  as  grovelling  a  beast  as  ever  fed  at 
manger,  trough,  or  crib,  tells  the  labourers,  that  in  setting 
£re  to  farm  stock  they  do  not  injure  the  farmer,  because  his 
property  is  always  insured!     Very  well,  then,  why  do  you 
offer  rewards  for  detecting  the  burners ;  why  do  you  pay 
watches  and  guards  ?     If  the  fires  do  you  good  by  getting 
you  a  market  in  the  lump,  ready  money  down,  instead  of 
being  plagued  with  the  thrashing  and  sending  to  market,  why 
do  you  hire  watchers,  at  high  wages,  and  pamper  them  with 
suppers  and  with  spirits,  to  prevent  these  beneficial  fires  ? 
Why  do  you  form  yourselves  into  parochial  patrols  ;  why  do 
you  burn  candles  all  night  in  your  houses,  and  lie  down  on 
your  beds  with  your  clothes  on ;  wearied,  as  you  must  be, 
with  the  military  performance  of  the  day  ? 

h5 


154  Two-penny  Trash; 

Poh !  The  Chopsticks  know  well  how  the  fires  affect  you  ; 
they  see  that  at  any  rate  the  fires  induce  this  beastly  writer 
in  the  Norwich  Mercury  to  suggest,  as  a  remedy,  better 
treatment  of  them  than  they  have  experienced  for  many 
years  past.     Just  so,  gentlemen  yeomanry  cavalry;   that  is 
the  remedy,  and  the  only  remedy ;  and  if  this  filthy  slave  of 
the  bull- frogs  of  Norfolk  should  prevail  upon  you  to  follow 
his  advice  in  this  respect,  I  shall  be  almost  ready  to  forgive 
the  dirty  fool  for  ascribing  the  fires  to  the  instigation  **  of 
miscreants  who  mean  to  make  use  of  these  fires  as  the  means 
of  accomplishing  a  political  revolution  !"     He  includes,  I  sup- 
pose, amongst  these  miscreants  those  who  do  not  think  that  the 
old  veteran  patriot  Whig  Coke  of  Norfolk  ought  to  have  re- 
ceived four  thousand  pounds  a- year  of  the  public  money.,  in: 
a  snug  sinecure,  for  more  than  half  a  century  ;  and  that  he 
ought  to  be  made  to  refund  that  which  he  has  so  received. 
I  am  one  of  these  miscreants  at  any  rate ;  and  I  can  tell  you, 
that  your  hairy-caps  and  Wellington-boots  will  not  at  all 
tend  to  prevent  the  accomplishment  of  my  wishes,  revolu- 
tionary as  those  wishes  may  be. 

Wm.  cobbett. 


TO  THE  LABOURERS, 

On  the  Folly  of  their  putting  their  Money  into  Clubs, 


My  FriendSj 

It  is  the  general  practice  of  those  who  invent  something 
to  delude  and  cheat  other  people,  to  give  a^ooo?  name  to  the 
thing  which  they  invent;  and,  accordingly,  those  who  have 
invented  this  scheme  for  inducing  you  to  give  up  your  earn- 
ings^ to  prevent  them  from  paying  poor-rates,  have  christened 


1st  Januaty,  1832.  155 

these  clubs  ^'  BENEFIT  clubs,"  instead  of  calling  them, 
as  they  ought  to  have  done,  clubs  to  wheedle  money  out  of 
the  hard-earned  pence  of  the  working  people,  in  order  to 
spare  the  purses  of  the  landowners,  big  fanners,  and  other 
rich  men.  It  was  not  till  about  seventy  years  ago  that  clubs 
like  these  were  ever  heard  of  in  England.  Before  this  Pro- 
testant Church  of  England  sprang  up,  the  poor  were  relieved 
out  of  the  tithes.  Since  that,  the  parsons,  the  bishops,  the 
deans  and  chapters,  and  the  nobility  and  gentry,  have  taken 
all  the  tithes  to  themselves;  and  the  poor  have  been  relieved 
hy  what  are  called  the  poor-rates.  The  same  may  be  said 
tvith  regard  to  the  church-rates^  which  also  formerly  came 
out  of  the  tithes. 

There  needed  no  clubs  before  this  Protestant  Church  esta- 
blishment came,  because  the  priests  relieved  all  the  poor  out 
of  the  tithes,  and  out  of  the  rents  of  lands,  and  other  property 
which  had  been  bequeathed  to  the  clergy  for  that  purpose. 
There  was  therefore  no  occasion  for  poor-rates,  for  all  poor 
persons  were  sure  to  be  taken  care  of,  whether  in  sickness  or 
in  health,  to  the  end  of  their  days  ;  and  besides  so  happy  was 
the  state  of  the  country,  that  there  were  few  persons  poor  in 
any  one  parish ;  the  wages  paid  to  labourers  were  so  good, 
that  no  man  who  was  able  to  work,  ever  stood  in  need  of  re- 
lief; and  in  case  of  sickness,  people  in  general  were  so  well 
©ff,  that  there  were  few  who  could  not  be  conveniently  re- 
lieved by  their  relations.  This  fatal  change  took  place  about 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago;  and  it  is  about  two  hun- 
dred and  thirty  years  ago  that  the  poor-rates  were  enacted. 
For  many  years  poverty  was  not  so  great,  wages  were  not  so 
low.  in  proportion  to  the  price  of  provisions,  as  to  compel 
many  persons  to  apply  for  parish  relief.  When  I  was  a  boy, 
it  used  to  be  deemed  a  shame  to  apply  to  the  parish.  But 
the  desolating  Snd  extravagantly  expensive,  and  long  and 
bloody,  wars  of  George  III.  plugged  ihe  nation  into  debts,  so 


156  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

great,  made  the  taxes  so  heavy,  and  made  wages  so  low,  io 
proportion  to  the  price  of  provisions,  that  labouring  men  were 
compelled,  in  case  of  sickness  especially,  either  to  expose  their 
families  to  be  starved,  or  to  obtain  assistance  greater  thaa 
their  relations  were  able  to  give  them.  In  this  state  of 
things  the  cunning  fellows,  who  had  to  pay  the  poor-rates, 
invented  what  they  called  '^  BENEFIT  clubs,"  which  was 
a  scheme  for  drawing  out  of  the  wages  of  the  labourers,  who 
"were  able  to  work,  the  means  of  relieving  those  who  were 
unable  to  work;  or,  in  other  words,  to  make  the  healthy  la- 
bourers pinch  their  bellies  and  their  back/?,  in  order  to  re- 
lieve the  sick  labourers,  and  thus  save  the  pockets  of  these 
cunning  rich  fellows. 

Every  penny  that  a  labouring  man  pays  into  these  clubs,  is 
a  penny  given  to  the  rich ;  and,  besides  that,  it  is  a  penny 
given  to  uphold  Sturges  Bourne's  bills,  and  to  pay  hired 
overseers,  and  in  short  to  pay  for  causing  himself  and  his 
neighbouri  to  be  put  into  harness  and  to  be  made  to  draw 
carts  and  wagons  like  beasts  of  burden.  If  you  could  have 
any  doubt  in  your  minds  about  the  tendency  of  these  clubs, 
you  would  only  have  to  look  at  the  persons  who  are  the  most 
eager  to  promote  such  clubs,  and  to  uphold  them  and  per- 
petuate them.  There  was  a  fellow,  some  years  ago,  a 
Scotch  fellow,  named  Old  George  Rose,  who  had  been 
a  purser  in  the  navy  ;  who  was  a  famous  tool  of  the  famous 
Pitt ;  from  a  Purser  he  became  a  right  honourable  privj/ 
councillor ;  he  received  for  many  years  not  less  than  tea 
thousand  pounds  a  year  of  the  public  money;  he  got  a 
sinecure  place  settled  upon  him  for  life  of  three  thousand 
pounds  a  year,  and  settled  upon  his  son,  George  Rose, 
for  his  life  also.  This  man  became,  about  forty  years  ago, 
the  great  promoter  of  benefit  clubs ;  he  lived  at  Cufnells^  in 
the  New  Forest,  in  Hampshire ;  he  was  himself  a  member 
of  a  club  there;  he  used  punctually  to  pay  in  his  pennies; 


1st  January,  1832.  157 

he  used  to  dine  with  the  club  ;  and  thus  he  drew  in,  thus 
this  cunning  Scotchman  humbugged,  all  the  poor  chopsticks 
about  that  country,  taking  good  care  never  to  tell  them  that 
his  carriages,  and  horses,  and  fine  park,  and  deer,  all  came 
out  of  their  labour. 

Another  great  patron  of  benefit  clubs  is  that  Flem- 
IXG  (whose  name  was  Willis),  who  was  lately  a  member 
for  Hampshire,  and  who  was  so  pelted  off  the  hustings  at 
Winchester.  Can  this  man  want  to  do  good  to  the  peo- 
ple ?  Can  he  be  the  friend  of  the  working  people  ?  Caa 
he,  who  was  the  tool  in  the  hands  of  the  parsons  in  Hamp- 
shire, mean  to  do  the  working  people  any  good  ?  Besides^ 
you  see  all  the  greediest  of  the  big  farmers,  the  most  eager 
to  promote  and  uphold  these  clubs. 

Then,  again,  mark  the  conduct  of  the  Government  I 
What  business  had  it  and  the  Parliament  to  meddle  with 
the  affairs  of  these  clubs  ?  What  right  had  they  to  inter- 
fere with  the  management  of  these  concerns  ?  What  right 
had  they  to  meddle  with  the  management  and  distribution  of 
money  belonging  to  the  members  of  a  club,  any  more  thaa 
with  money  belonging  to  any  partnership  whatsoever  ?  Yet 
they  have  interfered  ;  they  have  passed  laws  to  give  their 
magistrates  a  superintending  power  over  these  clubs ;  they 
have  passed  laws  to  prevent  the  members  from  dividing  the 
money  at  their  own  pleasure  ;  they  have  passed  laws  which^ 
in  effect,  take  the  money  from  under  the  command  of  the 
members  of  the  club ;  and,  in  a  great  measure,  take  it 
away  and  make  it  a  part  of  what  is  called  the  national 
debt. 

The  savings  hanks,  as  they  are  called,  were  invented  by 
that  same  cunning  Scotchman,  old  George  Rose.  The 
money  collected  by  these  things  is,  what  is  called,  put  into 
the  funds,  and  the  poor  people  imagine  that  the  funds  mean 
a  chest  or  box  where  the  money  is  locked  up.     Alas !  my 


158  Two-penny  Trash; 

poor  friends,  there  is  no  such  chest  or  box  ;  the  funds  mean 
the  national  or  government  debt ;  and  the  putting  of  money 
into  the  funds  is  the  lending  of  money  to  the  Government ; 
and  the  Government  pays  the  interest  of  it,  not  out  of  any 
fund  that  it  has,  but  out  of  the  taxes,  a  part  of  which  you 
pay  in  every  gallon  of  malt,  pot  of  beer,  pound  of  sugar,  bit 
of  soap,  or  candle,  that  you  consume,  and  upon  every  bit  of 
tobacco  that  goes  into  your  mouth  ;  so  that,  first,  you  put 
your  earnings  into  the  clubs,  or  the  banks  ;  next  the  Govern- 
ment borrows  it  5  and  next,  if  you  ever  get  any  interest,  you 
get  it  out  of  the  taxes  that  you  yourselves  have  paid  !  Nothing 
that  ever  was  heard  of  in  the  world  before  is  equal  to  this 
delusion  and  folly  on  your  part ;  and  to  the  craft  of  those 
who  induce  you  to  put  your  money  into  these  clubs  and 
banks. 

When  a  club  man  is  ill,  the  parish  give  him  no  relief ; 
because  he  has  an  allowance  out  of  the  club.  When  a  man 
becomes  seventy  years  old,  he  has  an  allowance  from  the 
club  for  the  rest  of  his  life ;  and,  w^hether  sick  or  well,  the 
parish  never  give  him  any  relief  to  the  day  of  his  death  ! 
One  w^ould  think  that  this  was  enough  to  open  your  eyes : 
one  w^ould  think  that  here  was  enough  to  make  you  see  why 
the  big,  the  grasping,  the  grinding  farmers,  are  so  eager  to 
get  you  into  clubs,  "  into  benefit  clubs  ;"  that  is  to  say,  into 
clubs  that  are  of  great  benefit  to  them,  and  of  great  injury 
to  you ;  here  is  enough  to  make  you  see  why  they  do  you 
the  honour  to  come  and  dine  with  you  once  a  year,  though, 
all  the  rest  of  the  year,  they  treat  you  far  worse  than  they 
treat  their  dogs. 

If  a  man  earn  more  money  than  is  necessary  to  supply 
him  with  food  and  with  raiment  and  the  other  things  that  he 
wants,  cannot  he  keep  his  money  himself?  Cannot  he 
tiike  as  good  care  of  it,  as  the  grinding  farmers  and  the 
Government  can  I  yes,  and  if  he  happen  to  be  sick,  he  has 


1st  January,  1832.  159 

relief  from  the  parish,  and  his  own  money  too,  and  he  ought  to 
have  both  ;  for  the  money  that  he  has  saved  he  ought  to  keep 
till  old  age,  as  the  just  reward  of  his  extraordinary  industry 
and  frugality.  A  drunken  and  dissolute  life  produces  illness ; 
and  as  there  will  naturally  be  some  drunken  and  dissolute 
^persons  in  the  club,  they  will  be  sick  oftener  than  the  rest ; 
so  that  the  sober  and  orderly  man  has  to  work  to  maintain 
the  profligate  in  his  sickness.  Then,  again,  some  men  have 
hereditary  diseases,  such  as  consumption  and  king's-evil. 
These  unfortunate  persons  are  entitled  to  compassion  from 
the  healthy  labouring  man  ;  but  they  are  entitled  to  sup- 
port from  the  lands  of  the  parish,  and  ought  not  to  be  made 
in  this  manner  to  extract  their  maintenance  from  the  healthy 
labouring  men. 

The  depositing  of  money  in  this  way,  has  a  very  bad  moral 
effect ;  it  makes  men  less  careful  to  adhere  to  such  conduct 
as  is  necessary  to  the  preservatiou  of  health.  It  tends  to 
make  them  drunkards,  and  to  be  less  cautious  how  they  ex- 
pose themselves  to  bodily  harm.  In  many  cases  it  makes 
them  successful  hypocrites  ;  makes  them  either  sham  illness 
altogether,  or  to  affect  its  existence  after  it  has  ceased. 

But,  after  all,  and  if  all  the  other  objections  were  re- 
moved, what  sense  is  there  in  the  thing  ?  What  is  there  in 
it  but  pure  folly  ?  What  is  there  in  it  but  giving  away  your 
tnoney  ?  All  the  men  that  enter  the  club  must  be  young  and 
healthy  at  the  time ;  and  why  should  a  young  and  healthy 
man  give  his  money  to  any-hody  else  to  keep  for  hiai 
against  a  day  of  sickness  ?  Either  he  pinches  his  back  or 
his  belly  for  the  sake  of  lodging  this  money  in  the  club,  or  he 
has  this  money  over  and  above  that  which  he  wants  for  bis 
back  or  his  belly  3  if  the  former,  then  he  enfeebles  Himself; 
makes  himself  a  poor  mean-looking  fellow ;  undermines  his 
health  and  strength,  solely  for  the  advantage  of  those  who 
live  in  luxury  and  splendour  on  the  fruit  of  his  toil :  if  the 


160  Two-penny  Trash; 

latter,  why  not  keep  the  money  in  his  own  chest  ?  In  th« 
course  of  the  year  he  pays  thirty  or  forty  shillings  into  the 
all-swallowing  club.  In  the  course  of  five  years  he  pays  in  tea 
pounds  perhaps.  But  suppose  it  to  be  only  twenty  shillings  a 
year,  how  many  times  does  a  man  see  an  occasion  in  which, 
by  the  means  of  this  little  bit  of  ready  money,  he  could,  to 
very  great  advantage,  purchase  a  pig,  plant  a  bit  of  ground, 
or  do  something  by  which  the  money  would  produce  him 
more  to  eat,  drink,  or  wear,  than  two  pounds  laid  out  from 
hand  to  mouth  ?  Many  are  such  occasions  that  present 
themselves  ;  but  you  cannot  avail  yourself  of  them^  for  your 
money  is  locked  up  in  the  club.  You  cannot  brew  without 
malt  and  hops  ;  the  club  has  got  your  money,  and  you  must 
go  to  the  ale-house,  and  purchase  your  beer  by  the  pot.  So 
that  these  clubs,  view  them  in  what  light  you  will,  are  in- 
jurious to  the  w^orking  people,  and  serve  no  otlier  purpose 
than  that  of  making  their  lot  harder  than  it  would  have  been 
without  them.  Young  men  deem  a  bastard  child  a  great 
burden ;  but,  not  to  mention,  that,  in  this  case,  there 
has  been  something  like  value  received,  and  that  time,  and 
reasonable  time  too,  takes  the  burden  from  your  shoulders, 
which,  besides,  you  may  at  any  time  remove  by  doing 
justice  to  the  mother  :  whereas  the  club  sticks  to  you  all  your 
life  long,  while  you  have  health  and  strength  sufficient  to 
enable  you  to  sit  all  the  day  and  crack  flint  stones  with  a 
hammer. 

Therefore,  my  advice  to  all  young  men  is,  Never  give  a 
farthing  to  one  of  these  clubs;  and  if  you  have  begun  to  give, 
cease  to  give  immediately;  to  have  been  foolish,  is  no  reason 
for  being  foolish  still  3  and  be  you  well  assured  that  the  first  loss 
is  the  best.  Stuck  on  to  one  of  these  clubs,  you  cannot  re- 
move out  of  the  kingdom  ;  nor  even  very  wxll  from  one  part 
of  the  kingdom  to  the  other,  without  losing  all  that  you  have 
put  into  this  craftily-contrived  trap.     Get  out  of  it  if  you  be 


1st  January,  1832.  161 

in;  keep  out  of  it  if  you  be  out;  and  trust  to  God,  to  your 
own  industry,  and  sobriety,  and  to  the  law  of  the  land,  for 
aid  in  case  of  sickness;  and  thus  merit  the  commendation  of 

Your  friend, 

Wm.  COBBETT. 


THE  FIRES. 

The  London  papers  have  come  to  an  agreement,  it  seems, 
not  to  give  any  account  of  the  fires  that  are  blazing  all  over 
England.  The  wise  politicians,  who  conduct  these  daily 
supplies  of  intelligence  and  knowledge,  are  constantly  telling 
us  that  the  fires  arise  from  the  working  people  not  being  able 
to  get  at  the  sight  of  a  London  paper ;  and  yet  these 
patriotic  philosophers  suppress  all  mention  of  the  fires,  lest 
such  mention  should  encourage  the  labourers  to  proceed  ia 
the  burnings.  These  patriots  appear  to  be  very  pious  men  ^ 
and  to  be  duly  convinced  of  the  existence  of  a  future 
state.  So  great  is  their  awe,  that  these  present  transient 
fires  seem  constantly  to  remind  them  of  the  fire  everlastings 
at  the  bare  idea  of  which  they  seem  to  tremble.  It  is  very 
curious  that  the  two  assemblies  down  at  St.  Stephen's  seem 
fully  to  participate  in  this  reverential  feeling  5  they  talk  of  the 
unsettled,  the  dangerous,  the  horrible  state  of  the  country  j 
they  talk  about  political  unions,  about  unlawful  combinations, 
and  about  all  sorts  of  things ;  but  as  if  they  had  bound 
themselves  by  an  oath  upon  the  altar  not  to  do  it,  never  does 
any  one  of  them,  even  by  accident,  or  in  a  figure  of  rhetoric, 
pronounce  the  word  FIRE  !  Nevertheless,  that  the  fires- 
do  blaze,  will  appear  from  the  following  paper,  which  I  have 
received  in  a  great  staring  placard,  printed  by  Baker,  of 
Dereham,  in  Norfolk,  and  dated  on  the  28th  of  November, 
1831.  It  comes  from  that  part  of  Norfolk  which  is  called 
the  hundred  of  La un ditch,  in  which,  it  seems,  great  sums. 


162  Two-penny  Trash j 

of  money  have  been  raised  ;  a  large  subscription  has  beeft 
made  for  giving  rewards  to  informers,  and  for  employing 
guards,  I  will  insert  this  paper  just  as  it  stands  in  the 
placard,  except  that  I  shall  number  the  paragraphs,  in  order 
to  be  able  to  refer  to  them  with  more  ease. 


FIVE  HUNDRED  POUNDS  REWARD, 

In  addition  to  any  Sum  which  Government  may  offer* 

To  the  Well-disposed  Cottagers  of  the  Hundred  of  Launditch. 

Friends  and  Neighbours  y 

1.  Will  you  listen  for  a  few  mioutes  to  a  friendly  address  from 
persons  who,  thougli  uuknowa  to  many  of  you,  are  well-wishers  to 
you  all?  We  would  talk  with  you  of  the  dreadful  scenes  which 
many  of  you  have  witnessed  with  your  own  eyes.  You  have  seen 
the  darkness  of  night  suddenly  lit  up  with  a  terrible  blaze.  You 
have  asked  the  cause  of  this  unnatural  sight,  and  you  have  beeu 
shocked  (o  learn  that  it  was  the  wickedness  of  man  destroying  the 
bounty  of  God*  As  your  heart  has  sickened  at  the  sight,  you  have 
said  to  yourselves, — "  What  wretched  times  are  these  !**  Wretched 
times  indeed  they  are,  and  such  as  call  upon  every  man  of  right' 
feeling,  whether  high  or  low,  rich  or  poor,  to  do  bis  best  to  improve 
them.  We  are  persuaded  that  we  are  now  speaking  to  persons  who 
detest  these  horrid  practices.  We  believe  that  most  of  you,  who- 
ever think  seriously  upon  the  matter,  would  7'aMer  thrust  your  hand 
into  your  own  fire  than  employ  it  in  setting  fire  to  the  property  of 
others.  Some  of  you  have,  perhaps,  grown  a  little  corn  yourselves : 
almost  all  have  had  a  little  gathered  in  by  the  gleaning  of  your 
family.  If  any  person,  who  fancied  himself  ill-treated  by  you, 
should  steal  to  your  little  store,  and  set  fire  to  it  at  the  risk  of  burning 
you  in  your  bed,  what  a  vile  and  wicked  fellow  would  you  call  him  I 
You  would  all  agree  to  scout  such  a  villain  from  your  company. 
Nay,  if  you  knew  of  any  one's  intending  to  do  such  mischief  to  a 
xieighbour,  your  conscience  would  never  rest  without  giving  your 
neighbour  notice  of  it.  Now  the  wickedness  of  such  a  man  is 
exactly  of  the  same  kind  as  that  of  him  who  steals  to  a  stack  or 
barn  and  sets  fire  to  it,  cai'cleis  whether  or  not  any  lives  may  be 
lost.  We  trust,  therefore,  your  conscience  will  not  rest  without 
giving  all  the  information  you  can,  if  you  happen  to  hear  of  any 
one  who  threatens  to  set  fire  to  stacks  or  houses,  or  who  has  already 
xlone  so.  By  so  doing  you  will  certainly  gain  the  favour  and  en- 
couragement of  all  good  men  ;  and  we  are  sure  that  if  you  do  other- 
wise, you  will  carry  a  sadly-'burdened  conscience  to  the  grave. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  in  the  sight  of  God,  as  well  as  in  the 
eye  of  the  law,  a  person  who  allows  any  crime  to  be  committed, 


I 


1st  January,  1832.  163 


which  it  is  in  his  power  to  \)re\'ent,  is  as  guilii/ as  he  who  actually 
commits  it.  And  little  less  is  the  guilt  of  any  one  who  encourages 
such  Crimes  by  helping  to  conceal  them  after  they  are  committed. 
It  is  great  folly  for  such  a  one  to  talk  of  not  liking  to  injure  his 
neighbour.  He  is  really  injuring  an  innocent  neighbour  in  order 
to  spare  a  wicked  one.  And  can  this  be  right  ?  But,  as  we  said, 
we  believe  far  better  things  of  you.  Oar  fear  is  most  for  young  and 
thoughtless  men  J  who  give  themselves  up  to  the  feelings  of  the  mo- 
ment,  and  bestow  no  thought  upon  the  awful  consequences  of  what 
they  are  doing.  Some  of  you  may,  perhaps,  have  some  such 
thoughtless  connexions  or  acquaintances.  We  would  help  you  td 
open  their  eyes  to  the  madness  of  such  practices.  We  would  re- 
commend you  solemnly  lo  show  them,  in  the  first  place, — 

2.  How  wicked  such  burnings  are  in  the  sight  of  God,  It  is 
almost  impossible  to  look  at  a  yard  full  of  corn- stacks  without  lift- 
ing up  our  hearts  in  thankfulness  to  that  bountiful  Providence 
who  has  given  such  a  provision  for  the  support  of  his  creatures^ 
And  when  one  of  those  creatures  dares  to  commit  this  provision  to 
the  flames,  does  he  not  seem  to  throw  back  tiie  blessings  of  God  ia 
his  face,  and  to  say,  "  /  despise  the  gift  of  thy  hand?'*  The 
wickedness  of  man  did  once,  you  know,  provoke  God  to  curse  the 
earth,  and  make  it  bring  forth  thorns  and  thistles.  Is  not  such 
base  ingratitude  almost  enough  to  bring  down  a  second  and  a 
heavier  curse — that  it  shall  bring  forth  nothing  but  thorns  and 
thistles  ?     Show  them  next, — 

3.  How  foolish  such  burnings  are  in  respect  to  their  own  wants^ 
A  moment's  thought  must  show  them,  that  if  they  could  destroy  the 
whole  property  of  their  employer^  instead  of  paying  them  better,  he 
would  be  able  to  pay  them,  nothing  at  all ;  and  that  the  very  lasC 
means  to  make  bread  cheap  is  to  make  wheat  scarce.  Show  them 
again, — 

4.  How  little  after  all  these  burnings  injure  the  property  of  the 
corn  grower.  This  indeed  is  a  wretched  reason  for  not  doing  a 
wicked  act :  but  they  who  will  listen  to  no  other,  may  perhaps  stay 
their  hand,  from  the  knowledge  that  almost  every  grower  of  coru 
takes  care  to  protect  himself  by  insurance  of  his  stock  to  its  full 
amount  in  some  public  office. — Show  them  again, —    . 

5.  How  thoroughly  un-engliah  these  burnings  are.  A  bad  cha- 
racter enough  is  the  open  ri)bber  who  dares  to  commit  his  crime  ia 
the  face  of  day.  But  the  villain  who  skreens  the  workings  of  his 
deadly  malice  under  the  darkness  of  night, — who  has  courage  only 
to  do  that  which  a  mere  infant  might  do, — whose  villany  is  of  so 
black  a  kind  that  he  dares  not  confess  it  to  his  most  intimate  ac- 
quaintance, but  is  obliged  to  5^w/^  about  and  hide  his  crime  in  so-^ 
litary  silence,  scarcely  daring  to  look  an  honest  neighbour  in  the 
face; — does  such  a  wretch  deserve  the  name  of  an  Englishman? 
As  you  value  that  high  title  yourselves,  we  call  upon  you,  friends 
AND  NEIGHBOURS,  notto  allow  it  to  be  disgraced  by  such  miscreants^ 
as  these,  but  to  take  the  first  opportunity  of  dragging  them  iojus" 
tice. —  Lastly,  show  your  young  friends  y — 

6*.  How   dangerous  to    themselves  these  burnings  are.     All    the 
honest  part  of  the  public  are  joining  together  to  detect  and  punish 


164  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

these  destroyers.  In  your  own  hundred  an  association  has  been 
formed,  headed  by  gentlemen  of  the  highest  character  and  largest 
property,  and  joined  by  almost  every  man  of  substance  and  respect- 
ability, for  the  express  purpose  of  preventing  and  punishing  this 
horrid  crime.  A  number  of  active  men  will  he  on  the  constant  look^ 
€ut  against  these  practices.  When  a  fire  has  taken  place,  they  will 
be  soon  upon  the  spot,  and  spare  neither  time  nor  labour  to  detect 
the  criminal.  Nor  will  expense  be  grudged,  A  large  subscription 
of  money  has  been  made  to  furnish  the  means  of  detection  and  the 
reward  of  discoverers.  The  very  first  person  who  shall  be  the  means 
of  bringing  to  justice  a  single  offender  on  the  property  of  a  sub- 
scriber, will  receive  the  above  reward,  a  sum  which  may  place  him. 
for  all  his  life  out  of  the  reach  of  poverty.  When  once  convicted, 
the  criminal  can  have  no  hope  of  mercy:  the  law  will  assuredly 
take  its  course,  and  the  miserable  man  will  quickly  end  his  days 
under  a  load  of  infamy  and  remorse  of  conscience  and  forebodings 
of  the  vengeance  of  God. 

7.  We  would  hope,  friends  and  neighbours,  that  if  you  press 
these  considerations  closely  upon  the  thoughts  of  the  young  and 
JieedlesSf  they  may  be  sufficient  to  chech  the  first  rising  of  any  desire 
to  do  these  deeds  of  darkness. 

8.  We  have  taken  up  more  of  your  time  than  we  intended:  but  we 
cannot  conclude  without  one  other  friendly  caution  to  all  of  you, 
young  and  old.  Our  country  is  overrun  with  STRANGERS  of  the 
onost  mischievous  cha  acter.  They  hope  to  prosper  by  the  progress 
of  crime,  and  will  therefore  leave  no  stone  unturned  to  make  others 
as  wicked  as  themselves.  They  will  tell  a  thousand  false  tales  to 
delude  the  unwary,  and  lead  them  into  practices  which  may  end  in 
their  ruin.  Be  on  your  guard  against  these  men,  and  believe  no" 
thing  that  they  say.  The  county  of  Norfolk  was  always  famous  for 
its  honesty :  do  not  endanger  your  character,  your  conscience, 
perhaps  your  life,  by  listening  to  these  artful  and  wicked  strangers, 

S.We  speak  on  the  part  of  the  association  which  we  have  men- 
tioned above,  and  with  sincere  wishes  for  your  welfare  are 
Your  faithful  friends  and  neighbours, 
November  28th,  1831.  THE  COMMITTEE. 

First  of  all,  let  me  observe  that  this  Committee  do  not 
cboose  to  tell  their  names  ;  and  this  clearly  proves  that  there 
Tvas  no  man  amongst  them  bold  enough  to  sign  this,  at  once, 
canting,  threatening,  and  stupid  address.  In  paragraph  1, 
we  have  a  deal  of  cant  and  one  lie ;  for  whoever  had  the 
impudence  or  the  folly  to  say  before  that  a  man,  who  haa 
had  it  in  his  power  to  prevent  the  commission  of  a  crime, 
and  does  not  prevent  it,  is  equally  guilty  with  him  who 
actually  commits  the  crime  ?  If  for  instance  I  were  to  see  a 
chopstick  about  to  give  this  canting  fool  a  drubbing,  I  should 
be  able  to  prevent  him  from  doing  it ;  but  I  certainly  should 


1st  January,  1832.  165 

not  prevent  him  ;  but  must  I  then  he  guilty  of  an  assault  ? 
Poh !  impudent  canter.  This  is  not  the  way  to  produce  a 
cessation  of  the  fires.  In  this  first  paragraph  a  miserable  at- 
tempt is  made  to  persuade  the  labourers  in  general,  that  they 
are  not  suspected  ;  that  they  are  now  become  '^friends  and 
neighbourSf'  who  used  to  be  low  orders,  peasantry,  and 
mob.  Yet  the  writer  is  very  much  puzzled  to  find  out  some- 
body to  whom  to  impute  the  fires ;  and  in  short  it  is  impossi- 
ble for  any  labourer  to  read  this  without  being  filled  with 
contempt  for  the  writer ;  he  must  see  the  insincerity  of  the 
stuff 3  he  must  see  the  meanness  of  the  coaxing;  he  must 
clearly  perceive  the  wretched  motive;  and  the  impression 
upon  his  mind  must  be  quite  the  contrary  of  that  which  the 
writer  intends  to  produce. 

In  paragraph  2,  this  wise  Committee  call  upon  God 
They  tell  the  labourers,  that  when  they  see  a  yard  full  of 
corn-stacks,  they  ought  to  lift  up  their  hearts  in  thankfulness 
for  this  provision  which  God  had  made  for  his  creatures. 
They  seem  to  have  forgotten  that  the  labourers  know  that 
the  provisions  have  been  made  by  their  hands ;  and  they 
should  have  shown  them,  that  they  were  amongst  the 
creatures  who  partook  of  the  provision.  Poh!  foolish 
canters  !  they  know  well  enough  that  the  land  will  bring 
forth  something  besides  thorns  and  thistles ;  they  know  that 
it  will  continue  to  bring  forth  potatoes.  In  paragraph  3, 
the  labourers  are  told  that  the  burnings  will  not  raise  their 
wages,  but  will  make  the  farmers  unable  to  pay  them  any 
wages  at  all ;  and  that  they  will  make  bread  dear  instead  of 
making  it  cheap.  They  should  have  showed  them  that  what 
they  get  now,  in  the  shape  of  wages,  is  sufiicient  to  keep 
them  from  being  half  starved ;  and  when  they  were  repre- 
senting it  as  desirable  to  them  that  breadt  should  be  cheap^ 
they  should  have  explained  to  them  very  clearly,  what  it  was 
that  made  Daddy  Coke  and  the  rest  of  the  land-holders 
and  big  farmers,  especially  in  Norfolk,  never  cease  to  worry 


366  Two-penny  Trash; 

the  Gorernment,  till  they  had  got  the  Corn  Bill  passed  for 
the  express  purpose  of  making  bread  dear,  for  what  they 
called  the  ^'protection  of  agriculture,"  But  it  would 
not  have  answered  to  mention  this,  because  the  burners 
might  then  have  proceeded  in  their  Avork,  looking  upon 
themselves  as  protectors  of  agriculture.  The  foolishness, 
the  shocking  emptiness  of  paragraph  4,  are  fully  exposed 
by  the  contents  of  paragraph  5  and  6  ;  for  if  the  fires  do  the 
owner  of  the  consumed  property  no  harm,  why  be  in  such 
a  passion  with  the  burners?  Why  call  them  villains,  sculk- 
ing  cowards,  wretches  and  miscreants ;  why  keep  guards 
constantly  on  foot ;  why  make  subscriptions ;  why  offer  a 
reward  so  enormous ;  as  to  ^^ place  the  ijiformer  for  hi$ 
life  out  of  the  reach  of  poverty  ;''  why  hold  outthis  temp.- 
tation  to  perjury,  the  like  of  which  v^as  committed  in  Berk- 
shire last  year;  and  why  put  into  print  the  infamous  lie, 
that  death  is  sure  to  follow  conviction^  v^h^n  it  is  notorious 
to  all  England,  that  THOMAS  GOODMAN,  who  set  five 
fires  with  his  own  hand,  and  for  private  malice  too,  had  his 
life  spared  ? 

If,  in  paragraph  7,  the  ^^  friends  and  neighbo24rs^'  hB.d 
been  requested  to  press  some  good  lumps  of  beef  and  bacon 
and  some  good  beer  down  into  the  bellies  of  the  ^^  young  and 
heedless,''  instead  of  pressing  this  rubbishing  threatening 
stuff  upon  their  ^^  thoughts,"  there  would  have  been  some 
sense  in  the  request ;  but  even  this  would  have  been  swept 
away  by  the  stupid  stuff  of  the  next  paragraph,  about  the 
country  being  overrun  with  STRANGERS,  which  impu- 
dent lie  is  still  kept  up  for  the  basest  of  all  purposes. 
Whether  the  county  of  Norfolk  always  was,  as  this  fellow 
says  it  was,  '^  famous  for  its  honesty,"  I  know  not.  I  be- 
lieve that,  in  that;^  respect,  it  always  fully  participated  with 
the  rest  of  this  once-happy  country  ;  but  if  it  had  that  fame, 
this  canting,  mean,  lying,  and  at  the  same  time,  threatening 
Committee  have  done  their  best  to  deprive  it  of  that  fame. 


^1 


1st  January,  1832,  167 

In  the  sentiments  expressed  in  the  concluding  paragraph  I 
heartily  concur ;  that  is  to  say,  I  sincerely  wish  for  the 
ivelfa7*e  of  the  labourers ;  but  the  welfare  that  I  mean  has 
something  tangible  and  even  corporeal  in  it ;  namely^  good 
wages  to  the  labourer,  paid  him  by  the  farmer,  at  the  fire- 
side, over  a  familiar  mug  of  ale,  as  in  former  times ;  and 
not  half  wages,  handed  to  him  by  a  bailiff  from  one  of  the 
out-house  windows  of  Daddy  Coke's  agricultural  villas. 
'*  The  young  and  thoughtless  T'  those  young  and  thought- 
less, ought  to  be  sleeping  in  the  farmer  s  house,  and  not 
driven  out  to  make  room  for  the  music  and  the  dancing 
master.  Here  is  the  root  of  all  the  evil ;  and  until  this 
Toot  be  torn  up,  you  may  cant  and  coax  and  bully  and 
threaten  and  watch  and  offer  rewards  and  lie  till  you  be 
black  in  the  face,  you  never  will  have  peace  again.  But, 
how  is  anybody  to  compel  the  farmers  to  take  yearly  servants 
into  the  house  as  formerly?  An  Act  of  Parliament,  with- 
out anything  unconstitutional  in  it;  without  any  injustice  to 
anybody ;  without  any  direct  interference  in  private  affairs ; 
without  any  penalty  inflicted  on  anybody,  would  have  ac^ 
complished  the  whole  thing  in  one  single  year ;  but,  to  have 
such  an  Act  of  Parliament,  we  must  first  drive  away  the 
candles  and  Bellamy  and  his  regiment  of  cooks  and  cork- 
drawers.  In  short  when  Daddy  Coke  shall  cease  to  pocket 
the  proceeds  of  the  light-house,  the  young  and  thoughtless 
country  people  will  again  live  in  the  farm-houses,  and  then 
the  fires  will  totally  cease. 

Wm.  COBBETT. 


ANSWER 

Of  the  Labourer's  to  the  above  Canting  and  Bullying  Address. 

Mr.  Committee,  We  have  read  the  following  in  the  Cam* 
bridge  and  Huntingdon  Independent  Press,  of  the  10th 
Dec. ;  "We  last  week  copied  from  a  Tory  paper,  the  Hertford 


163     Two-penny  Trash  ;  1st  January,  1832. 

*^  County  Press,  a  statement  of  a  poor  man  at  Ware,  who 
^*  having  been  yoked  by  the  neck  to  a  gravel  cart,  was 
"  dragged  beneath  the  wheel  and  crushed  to  death.  Is  it 
'*  to  be  wondered  that  the  minds  of  the  poor  become  brutal^ 
^*  ized  while  their  tasks  are  assimilated  to  those  of  beasts  of 
'*  burden  V — There,  Mr.  Committee  !  Now  come  and  cant 
again  to  us,  and  call  us  your  "  neighbours  and  friends,*' 
That  is  our  answer  to  you.  Go,  you  hypocrites !  Nothing 
but  that^re,  to  which  the  Bible  dooms  you,  will  ever  softea 
your  iron  hearts  1 

We  read  also,  in  the  Scotsman  newspaper  of  the  30th 
November,  the  following: — *'  Barbarity . — A  case,  indicat- 
ing such  a  total  want  of  feeling  as  Scotland  could  scarcely 
have  been   expected  to  exhibit,  occurred  a  few  days  ago 
in  Calton,  Glasgow.     The  child  of  a  poor  man  having 
died,  he  was  under  the  necessity  of  applying  to  the  elder 
*'  of  his  district  for  a  coffin.     It  being  a  rule  lately  adopted 
*^  by  the  heritors  of  the  Barony,   that  the  elders  are  not   to 
'*  be  allowed  to  give  any  occasional  aid  during  the  interval 
'^  of  their  meetings,  in  other  v»^ords,  to  give  no  aid  to  a  pauper 
without  authority  obtained  at  the  monthly  meetings,  the 
elder  applied  to  was  not  at  liberty  to  do  more  for  the  poor 
man  than  to  give  him  the  coffin,  but  out  of  his  own  pocket  he 
^^  gave  him  Is.  6d,  to  aid  him  in  burying  his  child.     The 
'^  body  wasenclosed  in  the  coffin,  carried  to  the  church-yard 
'^  and  deposited  in  the  grave  3  but  there  it  was  destined  not 
'^  to  remain.     The  poor  man  was  unable  to  pay    the  ex- 
penses  required   by    the  bailie  of  the  burying-ground, 
and  the  elder  not  having  authority  to  pay  them  from  the 
funds  of  the  parish,  the  body  was  disinterred  and  given 
back  to  the  parent,  who  carried  the  coffin  home  under 
^*  his  arm!     Could  it  have  been  believed  that  in  Scotland, 
"  enlightened  Scotland,   such  barbarity  would  have  been 
*^  practised  ?"     ''Enlightened!''  Oh  no!  You,  Mr.  Com- 
mittee, are  more  enlightened  than  these  poor  Scotch  people  ! 
And,  in  time,  you  will  be,  and  they  too,  most  effectually 
enlightened\     Poh!  you  fools!  keep  your  breath  to  coo^ 
you.     Go,  and    get  justice  for  this    Englishman   and  this 
Scotchman,  before  you  call  on  us  to  fear  the  vengeance  of 
God! 

[Printed  by  Wm.  Cobbctt,  Johnson's-coart,  Fket-stieet.] 


<6 
i< 


No.  8.  Vol.  II. 


COBBETT'S 

TWO-PENNY  TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  February,  1832. 


Published  monthly ^  sold  at  \2s.  a  hundred,  and  for  300,  taken  at 

once,  lis. 


TO    THE    WORKING    PEOPLE: 

ON  THE  NEW  DEAD-BODY  BILL. 


Stockport,  in  Cheshire,  2UhJan.  1832. 
My  Friends, 

The  above  subject  is  very  interesting  to  you^  and  I  beg 
you  to  give  it  your  particular  attention.  You  have  been 
informed  of  the  horrible  murders  in  London,  committed  by 
the  bloody  Bishop  and  others;  and  I  will  now  explain  to 
you  the  cause  of  those  murders.  When  you  clearly  see  this 
cause,  you  will  know  how  you  ought  to  think  ^xi^Xfeel 
upon  the  subject. 

There  are  in  London^and  some  other  great  towns^ 
places  where  men  are  engaged  in  cutting  up  dead  human, 
bodies.  What  they  do  this  for ;  that  is  to  say,  under 
what  'pretence  they  do  this,  I  will  speak  by-and-by ;  at 
present  I  have  only  to  speak  of  the  fact,  and  to  show 
you  that  it  is  the  cause  of  the  horrible  murders  that  you 
have  lately  read  of.  The  cutters- up  of  human  bodies,  or 
body- cutters,  purchase  dead  bodies   to  cut  up,  and  with 

London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street; 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 


170  Two-penny  Trash; 

just  as  little  scruple  and  ceremony  as  cut  ting -butchers 
purchase  the  dead  bodies  of  pigs  or  sheep  from  the 
carcass-butchers.  The  law,  as  it  now  stands^  makes  it 
only  a  misdemeanor^  that  is  to  say,  a  crime  punishable 
hyjine  and  imprisonment^  as  a  common  assault  is,  or  as  a 
libel  is,  to  steal,  to  sell^  or  to  purchase^  a  dead  human 
body  3  and  I  pray  you  mark,  that  to  steal  the  dead  body 
of  a  sheep,  or  pig,  or  calf,  or  ox,  or  fowl  o?  any  sort,  is  a 
capital  felony,  punished  with  DEATH  j  and  ihat  to 
receive  any  such  body,  or  to  have  it  in  your  possession, 
^knowing  it  to  be  stolen,  is  also  a  felony,  punished  with 
TRANSPORTATION.  This  law  extends  to  all  sorts  of 
moveable  property  5  and  a  bookseller  named  Cahuack 
(or  some  such  name)  zvas  transported,  some  few  years 
ago,  for  purchasing  and  having  in  his  possession  some 
copies  of  a  book  which  had  been  stolen  out  of  the  ware- 
house of  Mr.  BensleYj  in  Bolt-court.  This  bookseller 
had  a  family,  carried  on  a  respectable  business,  and  bore 
a  fair  character  3  and  he  alleged  that  he  did  not  know  the 
books  to  have  been  stolen.  From  the  circumstances, 
however,  the  jury  were  satisfied  that  he  did  know  them  to 
have  been  stolen  -,  and  he  was  transported  ;  and  very 
justly  transported;  for  he  was  as  criminal  as  the  thief 
himself. 

But,  my  friends,  if  it  he  just  (and  it  is  so)  to  punish  with 
transportation  a  man  who  receives  the  dead  body  of  a 
pig,  knowing  it  to  be  stolen,  what  are  we  to  say  to  the  law 
which  punishes  so  slightly,  and,  in  practice ^  punishes  not  at 
all,  he  who  receives  and  cuts  up  the  dead  body  of  one  of  the 
people,  though  he  MUST  KNOW  that  it  has  been  stolen, 
if  not  murdered  ?  What  are  we  to  say  of  suck  a  law  ? 
And  while  the  law  stands  thus,  what  is  the  protection  that 
the  labouring  people  receive  from  the  law  ? 

On  the  12th  of  December  last,  the  following  letter  was 


1st  February,  1832.  171 

published  in  all  the  London  newspapers.  I  beg  you  to  read 

it  with  attention. 

"  Sir, — Having  dined  yesterday  with  some  of  my  bro- 

'*  ther  magistrates,  I  learned,  upon  information  which  I 

"  have  no  reason  to  distrust,  that  beside  the  confessions 

*'  published,  another  was  made   on  Sunday  last,   which 

"  comprehended  a  catalogue  of  about  sixty  murders^  and 

*^  would  have  probably  gone  on  to  a  much  greater  extent, 

*^  but  for  th-e  interference  of  the  ordinary.     When  to  this 

"  is  added  the  large  supply  which   by  the  published  con- 

'*  fessioDs,   Bishop  appears  to  have  furnished  for  dissec- 

"  tion,  the  great  number  of  persons  employed  in  the  same 

"  way,  the  [)robable  profligacy  of  such  persons,  and,  as 

*'  asserted,  a  great  falling  off  in  the  number  of   burials^ 

"  notwithstanding  the  increased  population  of  this  me- 

"  tropolis,   there   is   certainly  but  too   much    reason  to 

^'  believe  that  this  si/stem   of  murder  amongst  the  poor^ 

"  which  Bishop  said  he  resorted  to  as  both  less  expensive 

^^  and  less  hazardous  than  collecting  from  cemeteries,  is 

•  "  become  extremely  common^  that  it  is  in  a  state  of  pro^ 

^^  gression,  and  that  neiu  and  extraordinary  modes,   how- 

'^  ever  inconvenient    to  the  professors  and    students   of 

"  anatomy,   MUST  BE   HAD  RECOURSE    TO,   FOR 

"  THE     PREVENTION    OF    SUCH     ATROCIOUS 

"  CRIMES.  *«  J.  Sewell 

"  21,  Cumberland-street, 
**  Purtinan- square,  Dec.  8." 

This  Mr.  Sewell  is  a  police  magistrate,  and,  besides 
this,  his  statement  is  notoriously  true.  Thus,  then,  sixty 
poor  persons,  at  the  very  least,  have  been  murdered  in 
London  alone.  Probably  hundreds  3  but  sixty  at  the  least. 
And,  observe,  they  have  all  been  RECEIVED  by  the 
cutters'up',  and  no  detectiot.  of  the  murderers  ever  took 
place,  until  that  of  the  bloody  Bishop  and  his  associates, 

1  2 


172  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

whose  conduct  was  so  open  and  unwary  that  the  receivers 
saw  that  they  were  liable  to  be  implicated  themselves  in 
the  crime  of  wxirder.  The  apology,  the  impudent,  the 
audacious  excuse  of  the  cutters-up,  is,  that  "  they  cannot 
^^  always  distinguish  the  body  of  a  person  who  has  been 
**  murdered  from  that  of  one  who  has  died  a  natural 
^^  deaths  This  is  stated  by  the  council  of  the  Royal 
College  of  Surgeons^  in  their  letter  to  Lord  Melbourne  of 
the  10th  of  December  last ;  a  document  the  most  impudent 
and  unfeeling  (see  it,  Register^  Jan.  14,)  that  ever  was 
put  upon  paper.  Well,  then,  since  they  declare,  that  even 
they  are  unable  to  distinguish  a  murdered  body  from  one 
that  has  died  a  natural  death  ;  and,  since  it  is  notorious 
that  there  are  hundreds  (ay,  hundreds!)  of  cutters-up  of 
human  bodies  ;  and  that  there  are  many  places  for  the 
receiving  and  purchasing  of  human  bo/lies,  and  that,  too, 
in  open  defiance  of  the  present  law  ;  what  ought  the  Par- 
liament to  have  done  the  moment  it  met,  after  the  detection 
of  the  recent  horrible  murders  r  Why,  pass  a  law,  to  be 
sure,  making  the  stealing  and  the  receiving  of  the  dead 
body  of  a  human  being  a  crime  as  great,  at  the  least,  as 
the  stealing  and  the  receiving  of  the  dead  body  o^  a  pig  or 
a  sheep.  This  is  what  the  Parliament  ought  to  have  done 
at  the  least.  And,  indeed,  it  ought  to  have  done  much 
more.  The  College  of  Surgeons  allow,  that  even  they  are 
not,  in  all  cases,  able  to  distinguish  betvveen  murdered 
bodies  and  bodies  stolen  from  the  coffin.  The  cutter-up  and 
the  receiver  never  know  that  they  are  not  accessaries  to  the 
commission  of  murder  :  they  proceed  in  their  bloody  work, 
knowing  that  they  may  be  such  accessaries.  No  man, 
nothing  short  of  a  monster,  will  deny  that  it  is  as  great  a 
crime  to  steal  the  dead  body  of  a  human  being,  as  it  is  to 
steal  the  dead  body  of  a  sheep  or  a  pig.  Therefore,  that 
crime  ought  to  be  punished  with  death  as  is  the  crime  of 


1st  February,  1832.  173 

stealing  the  dead  body  of  a  pig  or  sheep  ;  and  death  ought 

also  to  be  the  punishment  of  the  receiver  and  the  cutter' 

vp  J  because  they  can,  according  to  their  own  confession, 

never  know  that  they  are   not  wilfully  and  premeditatedly 

engaged  in  an  act  which  makes  them  accessaries  to  the 

commission  of  murder,  both  before  and  after  the  fact.  la 

short,  an  act  ought  to  have  been  passed,  the  moment  the 

Parliament  met,  to  punish  as  murderers,  all  those  who 

should,  in  future,  be  found  to  have  ^?^  their  possession  any 

human  body,   or  part  of  any  human  body,  not  delivered 

up   to  them   in  consequence  of  a  sentence  in  a  court   of 

justice. 

This  is  what  the  Parliament  ought  to  have  done.     And 

what  have  they  done  ?  Why,  one  Warburton  has  brought 

in  a  bill,  which  is  now  before  the  House  of  Commons. 

I  hare    not   seen   this  bill  j  but  the  following  has  beea 

published  ffs  an  abstract  of  it -,  and   this  abstract  is  quite 

enough  for  me,     I  will  first  insert  it,   and   then   remark 

upon  it. 

SCHOOLS  OF  ANATOMY. 
The  preamble  of  this  bill  states,  that  whereas  a  knowledge  of  .be 
causes  aud  nature  of  very  mauy  diseases  which  affect  the  body,  and 
of  the  best  methods  of  treating  and  curing  such  diseases,  aud  of 
healiug  and  repairing  divers  wounds  and  injuries,  to  which  the 
human  frame  is  liable,  cannot  he  acquired  but  by  anatomical  e.ra- 
mination;  and  whereas,  therefore,  it  is  higJdy  expedient  to  give 
protection^  under  certain  regulations,  to  the  study  aud  practice  of 
anatomy  :— 

Clause  I.  therefore  enacts  the  Secretary  of  State  to  appoint  In- 
spectors of  Schools  of  Anatomy. 

II.  Name  of  Inspector,  and  District  to  which  he  belongs,  to  be 
published  in  the  London  Gazette, 

III.  One   Inspector  to  reside    in   Loadon,    and  one  other   in 
Edinburgh. 

iV.  Inspectors  to  receive  returns  and  certificates. 

V.  To  visit  any  place  where  auatomy  is  carried  on. 

VI.  Salaries  to  Inspectors. 

VII.  Executors  may  permit  bodies  to  undergo  anatomical  exa- 
mination in  certain  cases. 

VIII.  The  same  not  to  be  removed  from  the  place  where  such- 
person  may  have  died,  without  a  certificate. 


174  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

IX.  Professors,  surgeons,  and  others,  may  receive  bodies  for  ana- 
tomical examination. 

X.  Such  person  to  receive  with  the  body  a  certificate,  as  afore- 
said. 

XI.  Persons  described  in  this  Act  not  to  he  liable  to  punishment 
for  hoving-  in  their  possession  human  bodies^  nor  for  any  offence 
against  this  Act,  unless  the  prosecution  is  instituted  by  the  Attorney^ 
General. 

Xil.  This  Act  not  to  pvoh\hit  post-mortem  examination. 

XIII.  So  much  of  9  Geo.  IV.,  c.  31,  as  directs  that  the  bodies  of 
murderers  may  be  dissected  is  repealed. 

XIV.  Bodies  of  murderers  to  be  buried  in  the  highway,  or  Jiung 
in  chains. 

XV.  This  Act  not  to  extend  to  Ireland. — \_Andwhy  notT\ 

Pray  look  well  at  clauses  9  and  11 3  especially  at  clause 
11 ;  and  observe,  that  nobody  is  to  prosecute  but  the  At' 
iorney-General!  Pray  mark  that.  THIS  SAME  WAR- 
BURTON  brought  in  a  bill,  in  18^9,  to  authorise  masters 
ofxi'orkhouses,  overseers  of  the  poor,  keepers  of  hospitals, 
and  keepers  of  prisons,  to  dispose  of  (and,  of  course,  to 
sell)  the  bodies  of  all  persons  dying  under  their  keeping, 
or  power,  unless  such  bodies  were  claimed  by  relations ; 
and,  even  then,  such  relations  were  not  to  have  the  bodies, 
unless  they  could  give  security  for  the  burial  of  them  ac* 
cording  to  the  rites  of  the  church.  Thus  were  the  very 
poorest  of  the  poor  to  have  their  bodies  sold  to  be  cut  up  \ 
Thus  were  the  Parliament  to  fulfil  the  command  of  God, 
and  to  show  their  belief  in  his  word.  "  Despise  not  the 
poor  because  he  is  poor,"  says  the  Bible.  What  would 
this  law  have  said }  Why,  **  cut  him  up  because  he  is 
poor  ? " 

This  bill  passed  the  House  of  Commons;  and  was  carried 
to  THE  Lords,  who,  to  their  great  honour,  rejected  it. 
W^hen  it  went  to  the  Lords,  1  petitioned  against  it.  I 
gave  my  petition  to  the  Bishop  of  London,  who  presented 
it^on  the  26th  May,  1829.  Now,  my  friends,  read  this 
petition  attentively.  It  states  your  case.  It  puts  forward 
your  claim  to  protection  against  the  cutters-up  and  the 
grave-robbers  and  the  murderers. 


1st  February,  1832.  175 

To  the  Right  Honourable  the  Lords  Spiritual  and  Temporal  of  the 
United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  in  Parliament 
assembled. 

The  petition  of  William  Cobbett,  of  Kensington, 
ftfost  humbly  showeth, 

That  a  bill  has  just  passed  the  Commons'  House  of  Parliament, 
which  bill  gives  authority  to  overseers,  or  other  persons  who  have 
the  char^^e  of  poor-houses  and  hospitals,  to  dispose  of  (and,  of 
course,  to  sell)  the  dead  bodies  of  those  paupers  and  patients  who 
may  die  in  workhouses  and  hospitals,  and  whose  bodies  are  not 
claimed  by  their  relations,  those  relations  giving  security  that  they 
will,  at  their  own  charge,  cause  the  said  bodies  to  be  buried. 

That  your  humble  petitioner  is  quite  sure  that  your  Right  Ho- 
nourable House  will  clearly  perceive  that  such  a  law  is  just  the 
same  thing  as  a  law  to  authorise  overseers  and  hospital- keepers  to 
disposeof  the  dead  bodies  of  all  poor  persons  wfiatsoevery  dying  under 
their  charg's ;  for  that  the  bare  fact  of  the  death  taking  place  under 
such  circumstances,  is  quite  enough  to  convince  every  one,  that  the 
bodies  of  such  poor  persons  will,  on  accoujot  of  the  poverty  of  their 
relations,  never  be  claimed,  especially  if  the  claim  be  to  compel  the 
claimant  to  give  security  for  defraying  the  expense  of  an  inter- 
ment; and  that,  therefore,  this  is,  in  short,  a  bill  to  enable  the 
agents  of  the  rich  to  dispose  of  the  dead  bodies  of  the  most  unfor- 
tunate of  the  poor,  and  that,  too,  for  the  benefit  of  those  rich. 

That  your  humble  petitioner  begs  to  be  permitted  to  state  to  your 
Right  Honourable  House,  that  those  poor  and  necessitous  persons, 
whom  the  law  calls  paupers,  have  a  clear  and  undoubted  right  to  be 
relieved  out  of  the  property  of  the  owners  and  occupiers  of  the 
houses  and  the  lands  ;  that  this  law  is,  as  stated  by  Blackstone, 
founded  in  the  principles  of  civil  society  ;  that  it  has  been  confirmed 
by  the  canon  law,  by  the  writings  of  the  Christian  fathers,  by  the 
law  of  nations  as  laid  down  by  civilians,  by  the  common  law  of 
England,  and,  lastly,  by  the  statute  law  of  England  ;  and  that  this 
right  extends  to  interment  after  death,  according  to  the  rights  and 
ceremonies  of  the  established  church. 

That  the  unfortunate  persons  who  die  in  poor-houses  and  hos- 
pitals have,  in  numerous  cases,  seen  better  days,  and  have,  during 
many  years,  contributed  by  direct  payments  towards  the  mainten- 
ance of  the  poor  and  the  sick  ;  that  those  of  them  who  have  not 
thus  contributed,  have  all  been,  as  long  as  able  to  work,  compelled 
to  pay  heavy  taxes  out  of  the  fruits  of  their  hard  labour  ;  that 
every  working  man,  of  whatever  description,  pays  full  the  one-half 
of  his  wages  in  taxes ;  and  that,  therefore,  when  he  becomes  so 
poor,  helpless,  and  destitute,  as  to  die  in  a  poor-house  or  in  a 
hospital,  it  is  unjust,  cruel,  barbarous  to  the  last  degree,  to  dispose 
of  his  dead  body  to  be  cut  up  like  that  of  a  murderer,  and  to  let 
him  know  beforehand,  too,  that  his  body  is  thus  to  be  treated^ 
thereby  adding  to  the  pangs  of  death  itself. 

That  your  humble  petitioner  beseeches  your  Right  Honourable 
House  to  bear  in  mind,  that,  in  ISO'^,  a  Return,  laid  before  Parlia- 
ment, stated  that  upwards  of  two  thousand  persons^  men,  women^ 


176  Two-penny  Trash; 

and  children,  belonging  to  nol)l€  or  rich  families,  were  receivings 
annually  large  sums  of  money  out  of  the  taxes  in  the  shape  of  pen- 
sions and  sinecures,  and  that  none  of  these  persons  had  ever  ren- 
dered any  service  to  the  public  for  the  suras  thus  by  them  received  ; 
that  your  petiliouer  does  not  think  it  probable  that  a  less  sum  is  on 
this  account  now  paid  out  of  the  taxes  than  was  paid  in  1808  ;  that, 
in  like  manner,  large  sums  of  money,  amounting  in  the  whole  to 
more  than  a  million  and  a  half  of  pounds  sterling,  have,  within 
these  few  years,  been  given  by  the  Parliament  for  **  the  relief  of 
the  poor  clergy  of  the  church  of  England;  *'  that  those  who  are  now 
patipers  have,  during  their  whole  lives,  been  paying  taxes  to  support 
these  poor  7iobIes  and  clergy  ;  that  they  have,  in  fact,  for  the  far 
greater  part,  been  reduced  to  a  state  of  pauperism  by  the  taxes, 
and  by  the  taxes  alone;  and  that  those  bodies  which  have  beea 
"worn  out  or  debilitated  by  labours  performed  and  privations  endured 
for  the  benefit  of  the  rich,  are  now,  when  breathless,  to  be  sold  and 
cut  up  for  the  benefit  of  those  same  rich. 

That  all  nations,  even  the  most  barbarous,  have  shown  respect 
for  the  remains  of  the  dead ;  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  invariably 
speak  of  the  rites  of  bift-ial  as  being  honourable,  and  of  the 
refusal  of  thpse  rites  as  an  infamous  punishment  and  signal  dis- 
grace ;  that  in  the  )5th  chap,  of  Genesis,  15th  verse,  it  is  recorded, 
that  amongst  the  gracious  promises  that  God  made  to  Abraham, 
on  account  of  his  faith,  one  was  that  he  should  be  buried  m  a  good 
old  age;  that  David  (2  Samuel,  chap.  2.),  when  the  men  of 
Jabesh-gilead  had  buried  Sa.u\y  blessed  them  for  his  kindness,  and 
said  the  Lord  would  reward  them  ;  that  the  Psalmist,  in  descrihing 
the  desolation  of  Jerusalem  by  the  hands  of  the  heathen,  says 
that  these  latter  had  given  the  dead  bodies  of  the  Israelites  to  be 
meat  unto  the  fowls  of  the  heavens,  that  they  shed  their  blood 
like  water^  and  that  there  was  none  to  bury  them,  which,  he  adds, 
has  made  the  Israelites  a  reproach  to  the  other  nations  ;  that 
iu  Ecclesiastes,  chap.  6,  verse  3,  it  is  said,  that  if  a  man  have 
ever- so  prosperous  ai.d  long  a  life,  if  he  have  7io  burial  he  had 
better  never  have  been  born  ;  that  we  find  by  Ezekiel,  chap.  39, 
that  even  enemies  were  to  be  buried,  and  that  if  a  humnn  bone 
-was  found  above  ground,  it  was  to  be  deemed  a  duty  to  inter  it; 
that  the  prophet  Isaiah,  chap.  14,  says  that  the  King  of  Babylon 
shall  be  kept  out  of  the  grave,  like  an  abominable  branch,  and  shall 
not  be  buried,  because  he  has  been  a  tyrant ;  that  the  prophet  Jere- 
'  miab,  chap.  7  and  8,  at  the  conclusion  of  a  long  and  terrible  de- 
nunciation against  the  Jews,  tells  them  that  they  shall  not  be 
gathered  nor  be  buried,  and  that  they  shall  be  as  dung  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth ;  that  the  same  prophet  chap.  14,  says,  that  the 
people  who  listen  to  false  prophets  shall  die  of"  famine  and  the 
sword,  and  shall  have  none  to  bury  them  ;  that  the  same  prophet, 
chap.  16,  foretelling  the  ruin  of  the  Jews,  says  that  they  shall  die  of 
grievous  deaths,  that  they  shall  not  be  lamented,  neither  shall  they 
he  buried,  but  shall  be  as  dung  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  ;  that 
the  same  prophet,  chap.  22,  pronounces  judgment  on  Jehoiakim, 
King  of  Juda,  for  covetousness,  for  shedding  innocent  blood,  for 
oppression  and  violence,  that  he  shall  be  buried  with  the  burial  of 


1st  February,  1832.  177 

an  ass,  drawn  and  cast  forth  before  the  gates  of  Jerusalem  ;  that  in 
the  New  Testament,  we  find  that  devout  men  carried  Stephen  to 
his  burial;  and,  finally,  that  hy  our  own  burial  service  and  canons 
we  are  taught,  that  to  be  buried  in  consecrated  ground  is  a  right 
belonging  to  every  person  who  has  been  baptized,  who  is  not,  at 
the  hour  of  death,  excommunicated,  and  who  has  not  killed  him  or 
herself. 

That  seeing  that  such  is  the  language  of  Holy  Writ,  your  humble 
petitioner  has  waited  until  now,  hoping  that  the  bill  in  question 
would  be  zealously  anr!  effectually  opposed  by  the  clergy  of  the- 
Established  Church ;  that,  if  the  bodies  of  poor  persons  can  be 
disposed  of  and  cut  up  into  pieces,  without  any  detriment  to  our 
faith,  our  hope,  our  religious  feeling ;  if  no  burial  service  is  at  all 
necessary  in  these  cases,  if  this  be  told  to  the  people  by  this  bill,  it 
is  manifest,  that  that  same  people  will  not  long  think  that  the 
burial  service  can  in  any  case  be  necessary,  and  that  they  will,  in  a 
short  time,  look  upon  all  other  parts  of  the  church  service  as  equally 
useless;  because,  as  your  petitioner  presumes,  there  is  no  ground 
whatever  for  believing  in  the  sacredness  of  one  rite  or  cereniony 
any  more  than  in  that  of  another,  and  that,  of  course,  if  the  Burial 
of  the  Dead  can  be  dispensed  with,  so  may  Baptism,  Confirmation, 
Marriage,  and  the  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper. 

That  your  humble  petitioner  is  firmly  persuaded,  that  a  belief 
in  the  resurrection,  and  in  a  future  state  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments, cannot  exist  for  any  length  of  time  in  a  country  where 
human  bodies  are  by  law  permitted  to  be  disi)osed  of,  and  that, 
too,  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  being  cut  to  pieces  for  the  use  of 
the  parties  acquiring  them  ;  and  that,  therefore,  atheism,  generally 
prevalent  throughout  the  country,  must  be  one  of  the  natural  con- 
sequences of  this  bill,  if,  unhappily,  it  become  a  law. 

That  your  humble  petitioner  hopes  that  your  Right  Honour- 
able House  will  perceive,  that  if  this  bill  were  to  become  a  law, 
the  hatred  of  the  rich  by  the  poor  must  become  implacable  and 
universal,  while  the  latter  would  be  taught  by  this  bill  atheism,, 
and  obduracy  of  heart,  and  familiarity  with  ferocious  ideas  and 
bloody  deeds  ;  and  that  it  would  require  greater  powers  of  per- 
suasion than  even  eloquent  men  generally  possess,  to  convince 
the  poor  that  they  ought  to  be  restrained  by  anything  but  want 
of  power,  while  the  same  Government  which  takes  from  them  a 
large  part  of  their  earnings  for  the  support  of  the  rich,  condemns 
their  bodies^to  be  disposed  of  after  deaths  for  the  benefit  of  those 
same  rich. 

That,  for  these  reasons,  your  humble  petitioner  prays,  that  your 
Right  Honourable  House  will  not  pass  the  bill  afore- mentioned,  but 
will  protect  the  poor  against  a  species  of  oppression  more  odious 
as  well  as  more  cruel  and  more  hostile  to  feelings  of  humanity 
than  any  ever  before  heard  of  in  the  world. 

And  your  petitioner  will  ever  pray.  Wm.  COBBETT. 

London,  22d  May,  182*J. 

Now,  my  friends,  the  present  bill  differs  from  the  former 
one^  in  some  respects  3   but  its  main  tendency  is  the  same* 

I  5 


178  Two-penny  Trash; 

What  it  will  be  at  last,  we  cannot  as  yet  precisely  say  -, 
but,  in  the  meanwhile,  look  at  the  following  report  of  a. 
debate,  which  took  place  in  the  House  of  Commons  on 
the  17th  instant. 

Mr.  Warburton  raoved  the  second  reading  of  the  bill  for  pro- 
viding subjects  for  the  anatomical  schools.  The  honourable  mem- 
ber, who  spoke  in  a  low  tone,  was  understood  to  say,  that  as  the 
bill  had  been  twice  before  the  House,  which  has  assented  to  its 
principles  on  former  occasions,  he  thought  any  explanation  unne- 
cessarv. 

Sir  Robert  Inglis  did  not  think  it  sufficient  that  this  bill  had 
been  twice  before  the  House  formerly,  to  induce  the  House  to  pass 
It.  He  required  further  explanation.  He  was  glad  to  observe  that 
in  the  present  bill  there  was  a  distinct  enactment  separating  the 
dissection  from  the  crime  of  murder  ;  he  was  satisfied  that  the  study 
of  anatomy  was  necessary  for  the  successful  practice  of  medicine, 
and  that,  therefore,  some  means  must  be  taken  to  reniedy  the 
present  state  of  the  law.  He  had  ascertained  that  during  last  year 
there  were  onli/  eleven  bodies  which  could  be  legally  disposed  of  as 
subjects,  and  these  were  to  supply  eight  hundred  students  of  medicine. 
While  the  principles  of  the  bill  were  deserving  the  attention  of  the 
House,  so  were  its  details.  There  was  one  of  these  to  which  he 
objected.  He  thought  the  relations  of  persons  dying  in  jails,  work' 
JwuseSy  dfc.,  should  have  their  bodies  if  they  chose  to  dema^id  them. 
He  would  not  oppose  the  second  reading  of  the  bill. 

Mr.  Cresset  Pelham  opposed  the  bill,  and  contended  that  it 
merely  gave  «  legal  encouragement  to  the  traffic  in  human  blood, 

Mr.  Hume  supported  the  bill,  ai;d expressed  his  surprise  that  the 
honourable  Barunet,  the  member  for  Oxford  (Sir  R.  Inglis),  should 
not  perceive  that  the  bill  would  male  subjects  cheap,  and  that 
its  provisions  were  therefore  the  more  likely  to  put  an  end  to  the 
traffic  of  those  who  calculated  on  a  high  price  as  a  reward  for 
the  perpetration  of  crime. 

Mr,  Perceval  recommended  that  the  mere  possession  of  dead 
bodies  should  be  held  to  be  a  felony.  The  knowledge  of  surgery 
could  not  be  lost  in  the  short  space  of  two  years,  and  if  they  were 
to  try  an  experiment  for  that  time,  he  was  sure  that  medical  men 
would  then  resort  to  the  dissection  of  animals,  and  obtain  from  it 
■when  conducted  under  proper  regulations,  all  the  knowledge  ne- 
cessary for  their  profession. 

Mr.  F.  Pollock  defended  the  principle  of  the  bill,  and  expressed 
hrs  surprise  to  see  it  maintained  as  just  that  medical  men  were  to 
be  civilly,  aye,  and  criminally  punished  for  ignorance  of  their 
profession,  and  yet  punished  at  the  same  time  for  any  attempt  to 
acquire  knowledge.  He  was  convinced  that  the  bill  would  effect 
a  most  beneficial  change,  without  in  the  slightest  degree  M'oww</iwg- 
that  sensitive  feeling  among  the  lower  classes,  which  he  should  be 
one  of  the  last   to  wish  wholly  obliterated. 

The  Attorney-General  was  in  favour  of  the  bill.  It  made 
no  alteration   in  the  punishment  of  those   who   were  guilty  of 


1st  February,  1832.  179 

crime.  Burkiqg"  was  still  murder,  and  punishable  with  all  the 
severity  it  deserved  ;  but  the  bill  took  away  one  of  the  incitements 
to  the  crime,  by  diminishing  the  expense  and  the  risk  of  procuring 
subjects. 

Mr.  Warburton  briefly  replied.  The  bill  was  intended  to  do 
equal  justice  to  the  poor  and  the  rich,  and  it  excepted  only  two  cases 
from  its  operation.  The  first  was  when  a  person  specially  re- 
quested that  his  body  might  not  be  dissected ;  and  the  second  was, 
when  the  next  of  kin  was  decidedly  averse  to  the  performance  of  the 
operation.  Nothing  could  be  more  idle  than  to  exclaim  that  the 
rich  were  solely  benefited  by  the  diffusion  of  the  knowledge  of 
anatomy.  The  very  contrary  was  the  fact.  The  rich  employ 
those  who  had  obtained,  at  a  great  cost,  their  knowledge  of  their 
profession  abroad,  while  the  poor  were  compelled  to  accept  that 
kind  of  assistance  which  was  within  their  reach,  and  which, 
if  it  did  not  include  practical  information  on  the  structure  of  the 
human  frame,  would  soon  be  lamentably  inefficient. 

From  this  we  are  to  conclude,  that  the  bodies  of  the  poor, 
who  die  in  prisons,  hospitals^  and  poor-houses,  are  to  be 
disposed  of  to  the  cutters-up.  No  matter  on  what  con^ 
dition:  I  care  not  a  straw  about  that :  here  will  be  a  law 
to  give  up  the  dead  bodies  of  the  poor  to  the  hackers 
and  cutters ;  and  that  is  quite  enough  for  me.  I  agree 
with  Mr.  Felham  and  Mr.  Perceval;  and  1  abhor  the 
expressions  of  Hume  and  of  Denman  about  making  dead 
bodies  CHEAP  !  Pollock  will  find,  I  fancy,  that  it  will 
^'  wound  the  sensitive  feelings  of  the  poor."  He  has  not 
read  that  part  of  my  first  Lecture  at  Manchester,  which 
related  to  this  matter.  It  is  curious  that  the  Whig  re- 
formers are  for  this  bill,  and  that  the  Tories  are  against 
it !  What  sort  of  a  reform  the  Whigs  have  in  view  we 
may  guess  from  this  circumstance.  For  my  part,  I  ani 
very  hard  to  believe  that  those  who  are  for  this  bill  mean 
the  people  any  good  by  the  Reform  Bill:  I  repeat  here  my 
words  at  Manchester  •  namely,  that  if  a  reformed  Parlia- 
ment cannot  find  the  means  of  protecting  the  dead  bodies 
of  the  working  people,  while  such  ample  means  are  found 
for  protecting  the  dead  body  of  a  hare,  a  pheasant^  or  a 
partridge  3  then,  indeed  the  bishops  did  right  in  opposins^ 
the  Reform  Bill  3  for  a  greater  delusion,  a  greater  frauds 
never  was  attempted  to  be  practised  on  any  part  of  man- 
kind. Let  me  stop  here  to  request  your  particular  attentioa 
to  this  matter  relating  to  the  want  of  law  to  protect  the 
dead  bodies  of  the  working  people.  You  all  know,  or  at 
least  every  Englishman  ought  to  know,  that  for  an  ua- 


180  Two-penny  Trash; 

qualified  person  to  have  in  his  possession  the  body  of  a  hare, 
pheasant,  or  partridge,  was,  a  few  months  back,  a  crime^ 
punishable  by  fine  or  imprisonment ;  that  to  have  in  his 
possession  wires,  or  other  implements,  for  taking  any  of 
these  wild  animals,  is  still  a  crime,  punishable  in  the  same 
manner  5  that,  to  be  out  in  the  night  in  pursuit  of,  and 
seeking  after,  the  bodies  of  either  of  these  wild  animals, 
and  carrying  with  him  the  implements  wherewith  to  take 
or  kill  them,  is  still  a  crime,  punishable  with  transportation 
for  seven  years,  and  this  punishment  may  be  inflicted,  too, 
and  has  been,  and  is,  frequently  inflicted  without  the 
sanction  of  a  judge,  and  at  the  sole  discretion  and  pleasure 
of  the  justices  in  quarter -sessions,  who,  as  you  well  know, 
are  the  game-preservers  themselves.  Yet  those  who  could, 
and  so  recently  too,  pass  over  this  last-mentioned  law,  and 
those  new  and  "•  liberal''  members  who  have  been  able  to 
sit  quietly,  and  say  not  a  word  about  this  law  for  transport- 
ing men  for  making  free  with  the  bodies  of  wild  animals, 
"which,  according  to  Blackstone,  are  the  property  of  no 
man,  and  which  belong  in  common  to  all  men  5  those  who 
could  make  and  so  vigilantly  enforce  this  law,  cannot,  for 
the  lives  and  souls  of  them,  find  out  the  means  of  passing 
a  law  to  protect  the  bodies,  alive  or  dead,  of  the  working 
people  ;  other  than  that  of  making  it  lawful  to  sell  their 
bodies  when  dead^  to  cut  up  and  cast  away  like  the  bodies 
of  murderers  or  traitors.  From  everything  that  I  have 
ever  heard  here  in  the  North,  and  particularly  in  this  town, 
I  believe,  that  if  the  horrible  bill  to  which  I  have  just  al- 
luded had  become  a  law,  that  law  would  have  never  been 
acted  upon  by  the  parochial  authorities  of  Manchester.  I 
hope  that  the  same  would  generally  have  been  the  case  j 
but  I  have  no  scruple  to  say,  that  an  attempt  to  enforce  the 
law  in  any  of  the  agricultural  counties  would  have  pro- 
duced open  and  desperate  rebellion.  Judge  you  of  the 
feelings  of  the  country  people  on  this  subject,  when  I  tell 
vou  that  there  are  clubs  in  the  country  parishes  in  Sussex, 
Kent,  Surrey,  Hampshire,  and,  I  suppose,  in  all  the  southern 
counties,  which  clubs  are  for  the  purpose  of  forming  a 
fund  for  defraying  the  expenses  of  ivatching  the  graves  of 
the  relations  of  the  members  of  the  club,  if  any  of  them 
should  die,  or  the  graves  of  the  members  themselves  if  they 
should  die  1     How  honourable  to  the  feelings  of  the  work- 


1st.  February,  1832,  181 

ing  people,  and  how  disgraceful. to  the  Parliament,  is  this- 
fact  !  Judge  you  what  would  have  been  the  consequences 
of  an  attempt  to  enforce  amongst  such  a  people  the  atro- 
cious bill  for  selling  their  bodies  to  be  cut  up  like  those  of 
the  most  heinous  malefactors  !  A  labouring  man,  James 
Ives,  who  worked  constantly  for  me  some  time  ago,  came 
to  me,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  to  get  125.  in^advance  of  his 
wages,  to  pay  (that  being  the  price)  for  watching  the 
grave  of  Ids  daughter,  who  was  just  then  about  to  be 
buried  !  Why  what  government- prof ection  could  this  man 
discover }  What  had  this  man  to  make  him  willing  to  be 
obedient  to  the  laws  ?  Great  care  is  taken  of  the  properti^ 
of  therich  -,  the  law  hunts  it  with  inflexible  eagerness  go 
whither  it  may ;  here  the  law  has  grown  harder  and 
harder,  till  it  has  made  the  receiving  of  stolen  goods  afe^ 
lonious  offence,  punishable  with  transportation.  But  those 
who  passed  and  have  enforced  so  rigidly  this  law,  have 
not  been  able  to  find  out  by  any  means  whatever  to  punisb 
the  RECEIVERS  OF  STOLEN  BODIES;  though  they 
MUST  of  necessity  KNOW  them  to  have  been  stolen,  if 
not  murdered  as  well  as  stolen  !  Common  justice,  even 
ncitural  justice,  would  make  it  felony,  punishable  with 
death,  in  any  one  to  have  in  his  possession  a  dead  body,  or  a 
part  of  a  dead  body,  unless  able  to  produce  proof  that  he 
obtained  it  in  consequence  of  a  sentence  of  a  court  of 
justice. 

If  reform  be  to  bring  us  laws  like  this  -,  if  it  be  to  give 
us  rulers,  who  think  it  a  good  thing  to  make  the  trade  in 
human  bodies  free  ;  if  this  be  the  ^'free  trade  ''  they  mean 
to  give  us  ;  if  this  be  a  specimen  of  ihe'w  political  econo* 
mg ;  if  "  cheap  ^'  human  bodies  be  their  sign  of  national 
prosperity ;  in  short,  if  measures  like  this  be  to  be  the  result 
of  Parliamentary  reform^  better,  far  better,  remain  as  we 
were,  poor  and  oppressed  3  but  not  put  upon  a  level  loitk 
the  beasts  that  perish,  and  see  the  flesh  and  bones  of  our 
relations,  parents,  wives,  and  children,  tossed  about  to  be 
devoured  by  the  fowls  of  the  air ;  or,  like  the  body  of 
Jezebel,  to  be  torn  about  by  dogs.  Warburton's  is  a 
miserable  attempt  to  make  us  believe  that  the  cutting-up 
is  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor,  and  that  the  law  is  to  be  im- 
partial. The  \evy  preamble  of  the  bill  is  false  :  and  this  I 
will  now  show  to  you  in  the  words  of  a  very  eminent  phy- 
sician, who  wrote   to  Warburton  on  the  subject,  when 


182  Two-penny  Trash; 

he  brought  in  his  first  bill,  and  whose  letter  was  published 
all  over  the  country  at  the  lime.  This  physician  proved, 
that  the  proposed  law  was  not  only  vnnecessary  to  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  surgery  ;  but  that  it  was  the  con- 
trary ;  that  the  cutting  up  of  human  bodies  was  injurious 
to  the  science  of  surgery.  Here  is  his  letter  :  1  beg  you 
to  read  it  witk  attention.  This  physician  recommends  that 
which  I  recommend ;  namely,  to  make  grave-robbing  a 
capital  felony,  I  pray  you  to  read  this  letter :  it  will  show 
you  that  that  bloody  practice  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  the 
making  of  a  man  a  skilful  surgeon.  If  it  were,  I  am  pre- 
pared to  prove,  that  this  bill  ought  not  to  become  a  law  : 
but  first  of  all,  read  this  letter ;  and  you  will  be  satisfied 
that  the  law  is  wholly  unnecessary  for  the  purpose  for 
which  it  professes  to  be  intended. 

*'  '  Cuilibet  in  arte  sua  credendum  est/'* 
**  Sir, — As  an  ardently  devoted  and  experienced  member  of  the 
profession,  pardon  my  questioning;  your  philanthropy  regarding 
the  g^eneral  expediency  of  '  Human  Dissections.*  He  who  has 
dissected  and  anatomised  so  much,  from  pure  inclination,  cannot 
reasonably  be  thought  to  be  prejudiced  against  them.  My  firm 
conviction  is,  that  they  are  by  no  means  essential  to  the  successful 
practice  of  the  physician,  nor,  indeed,  ordinary  general  practitioner. 
**  The  study  of  anatomy  and  physiology  {i.  e,  structure  and 
function  of  the  human  body)  1  admit  to  be  essential  to  the  per- 
fection of  medical  and  surgical  science,  1  repeat  study,  for  the 
knowledge  of  both  is  perfectly  attainable,  without  the  aid  of  dissec- 
tions, from  our  present  fruits  of  them,  in  the  way  of  preservations, 
engravings,  explicit  lectures,  and  scientific  records. 

**  I  canvass,  primarily,  the  physician's  vocation — and  what  have 
dissections  performed  for  him?  First,  as  to  the  knowledge  of 
disease.  Disease,  at  its  onset,  indeed  throughout,  consists  mainly 
of  functional  derangement ;  and  what  discovery  of  function  has 
been  made  through  dissection  ?  For  by  function  the  symptoms  and 
distinctions  of  disease  are  elicited.  The  perfection  of  this  vitally- 
important  branch  of  the  profession  (pathology)  is  acquirable  only 
by  experience,  which  enables  the  physician  to  distinguish  functional 
from  organic  affection.  What  information  derived  of  vital  functioa 
(i.e.  brain,  heart,  lungs,  stomach,  and  alimentary  passages)  by  our 
minutest  dissections  .''  Has  the  discovery  of  injury  of  brain,  after 
death,  thrown  any  important  light  on  the  valued  functions  of  its 
particular  parts  }  Anatomy  (i.e.  dissections)  throws  no  light  what- 
ever upon  those  prevailing  and  appalling  maladies,  St.  Vitus's- 
dance,  epilepsy,  palsy,  and  apoplexy  ;  and  why  ?  because,  gener- 
ally speaking,  they  are  functional  rather  than  organic  affections. 
Much  the  same  might  be  said  of  inflammations  of  mucous  and 
serous  surfaces,  where  life  had  been  sacrificed  to  them  ;  the  blood, 
at  the  moment  of  dissolution,  receding  from  arterial  to  venous 
cavities^  leaving   such   surfaces  more   blanched  than  florid  by  it. 


1st  February,  1832.  183 

Now  tbis  I  affirm,  not  from  mere  prejudice  or  hypothesis,  but  ex- 
perience. Again,  consumption  illustrates  another  ground  of  posi^ 
tion,  viz.,  as  to  the  ulceration  of  the  lungs.  We  know  full  well,, 
without  the  forlorn  aid  of  dissections,  or  stethoscope  itself,  that 
ulceration  is  consequent  upon  the  inflammation  of  mucous  and 
serous  surfaces  ;  nay  more,  that  such  ulceration  of  internal  and 
vital  organs,  almost  without  exception,  is  death.  We  prevent, 
therefore,  but  cannot  cure  consumption,  as  lamentable  experience 
has  taught  us.  In  a  word,  we  need  not  dissections  to  tell  us  that  the 
organic  affections  of  vital  parts  usually  prove  fatal.  Be  it  no  longer 
said  that  they  are  essential  to  successful  practice  ;  for  it  is  most 
disreputable  to  science  aad  the  ))rofession  to  have  it  supposed  even 
that  one  consigned  to  our  skill,  should  have  expired  without  our 
knowledge  (care  being  out  of  the  ijuestion)  of  his  malady. 

"  Seeing  clearly  our  weapons  must  be  such  as  to  combat  with 
morbid  [i.  e,  deranged)  function,  it  remains  to  be  inquired  what 
aids  towards  relief  or  cure  liave  been  derived  through  dissections  ? 
Our  remedies,  of  any  real  efficacy  at  least,  for  the  relief  (cure,  if 
you  would  rather)  of  functional  derangement,  are  few  ;  and  these 
with  a  view  to  subdue  inflammation,  correct  secret  secretion, 
promote  or  restrain  excretion,  and  give  tone  or  vigour  to  the  system. 
We  are  not  assuredly  indebted  to  dissections  for  our  treatment  of 
inflammation,  morbid  secretion,  or  debility;  but  rather  to  the 
lights  of  function  and  regimen,  aided  not  a  little  by  pathological 
and  therapeutical  experiences. 

'*  I  pass  over  the  absurdity  of  medical  testimony  (grounded  on 
dissections)  in  cases  of  abortion,  rape,  infanticide,  idiotism,  and 
insanity;  and,  from  moti\es  of  delicacy,  forbear  the  discussion  of 
them.  Under  dread  of  poison,  dissections  at  best  are  fallacious,  and 
our  knowledge  derived  more  from  chemical  than  anatomical 
acumen. 

''  Your  '  report,'  Sir,  if  I  comprehend  it  aright,  is  to  the  effect — 
first,  that  all  must  dissect  to  qualify  them  for  successful  practice; 
secondly,  that  the  bodies  of  executed  criminals  are  insuflicient  for 
the  purpose  ;  and,  thirdly,  that  the  repeal  of  such  Act,  and  the 
substitution  of  another  (confessedly  more  productive)  are  essential 
to  the  perfection  of  medical  science,  and  the  well-being  of  mankind. 

''  Now,  first,  as  to  the  expediency  !  'Tis  obvious  ;  pardon  me.  Sir, 
that  by  far  too  much  importance  has  been  attached  to  the  testimony 
of  Sir  Astley  Cooper  and  Mr.  Abernethy,  who  are  teachers  of 
anatomy,  and  not  physic,  in  London.  1  mean  no  disrespect  nor 
disparagement  towards  these  gentlemen  ;  but  why  this  stress  upon 
their  testimony  ?  Sir  A.  C,  after  many  years'  painful  and  toilsome 
experiences,  is  doomed  to  confess  that  the  operations  are  a  re- 
proach to  surgery.  Mr.  A.,  to  his  honour  be  it  said,  has  ever  been 
opposed  to  them.  It  would  be  superfluous  at  this  moment  to  speak 
of  their  physical  attainments  (apart,  at  any  rate,  from  dissections 
and  operations),  notwithstanding  I  affirm  that  these,  and  not  dis- 
sections, are  the  very  bulwarks  of  surgery.  It  were  as  manifest  as 
the  *  sun  at  noon-day,*  that  bodies  became  needful  in  support  of 
the  college  law  and  rage  for  dissections;  but  your  honourable 
Committee  required,  bona  fide^  to  know  whether  such  dissectioas 
were  demanded  for  the  benefits  of  science  and  prosperity  of  the 


184  Two-penny  Trash; 

human  race  ;  for  requisite  assuredly  they  had  made  them  for  stu- 
dents passing  college,  or  becoming  licentiates  of  the  Society  of 
Apothecaries,  I  may  humbly  be  permitted  to  suggest — teach 
students  upon  more  rational  and  physical  principles  ;  require  them 
to  possess  a  sufficient  classical  education  ;  sound  physiological, 
pathological,  therapeutical,  and  chemical  knowledge;  and  aiford 
them  ample  physical  and  surgical  experiences;  then  hopes  may 
be  entertained  of  their  becoming  expert  and  skilful  practitioners. 

**  Be  it  not  said,  for  mercy's  sake,  that  we  require  many  operative 
surgeons  (when,  in  fact,  were  matters  managed  better,  few,  very 
few,  indeed,  would  be  needed)  ;  and  let  these  be  select,  so  that 
matured  by  much  experience,  they  may  be  fully  competent  to  the 
important  duties  thereof. 

'*  Clinical  experiences,  beyond  all  your  dissections,  pt;ove  a  trea- 
sure |to  the  student ;  these  eminently  and  truly  teach  him  to 
distinguish  between  functional  derangement  and  organic  affection  ;. 
to  perceive  the  operation  and  the  effects  of  remedies  themselves, 
and,  I  had  almost  said,  the  divine  influeiice  of  regimen.  Em- 
boldened by  such,  and  the  like,  experiences,  with  confidence  ere 
long  he  predicts  the  convalescence,  or  perchance  the  dissolution,  of 
his  patient.  To  sum  up — the  true  doctrines  of  physic  are  founded 
upon  unerring  and  fundamental  principles  ;  and  such,  believe  me, 
as  are  eminently  calculated  to  avert  pending  calamity  ;  i.  e.  to 
supersede  the  necessity  for  operations,  which,  at  best,  are  painful 
and  calamitous  to  the  afflicted. 

*^  By  the  judicious  treatment  of  gravel  and  stone;  hernia  and 
aneurisms ;  glandular  affections  and  white  swellings ;  fractures 
and  dislocations  ;  to  the  honour  of  science  and  the  profession  be  it 
said,  we  save  much  and  calamitous  suffering  in  the  world. 

'*  Not  to  encroach  upon  your  valuable  time.  Sir,  or  be  thought 
prolix,  I  proceed,  secondly,  to  remark,  briefly,  on  the  insufficiency 
of  the  bodies  of  executed  criminals  for  scientific  purposes.  Immor- 
tality to  our  predecessors,  we  require  not  dissections  at  this  day 
for  the  acquirement,  much  less  the  perfection,  of  physiological 
and  physical  science.  The  mechanism  of  the  human  body  is 
amply  displayed  through  the  medium  of  engravings  and  preserva- 
tions ;  and  its  functions,  derangements,  and  diseases,  are  to  be 
known  and  amended  only  upon  the  living  body, 

'*  Most  unwillingly  I  advert  to  morbid  dissections,  the  last  refuge 
of  the  inexperieitced,  and  the  blot  of  our  art.  Few  things  have  tended 
more  to  cast  a  stigma  upon  the  profession,  and  afford  a  disrelish  for 
dissections,  than  the  heartless  performance  of  them  in  private  life. 
Forlorn,  indeed  our  hope,  if  we  expect  to  attain  skill  or  eminence 
in  the  profession  through  such  dissections,  I  speak  not  from  pre- 
judice, personality,  or  mere  hypothesis,  but  from  long  and  exten- 
sive observation  and  experience.  Why  most  of  our  sudden  deaths 
originating  in  derangement  of  vital  functions,  leave  no  traces.of  the 
source  of  dissolution  behind  them  ;  and  such  as  expire  under  more 
lingering  indisposition,  manifest  to  the  experienced  at  least,  organic 
affection  peculiar  to  the  structures  of  the  aft'ected  organ  or  organs. 
We  require  not,  therefore,  to  ascertain  such  appearances,  nor  would 
our  doing  so  aid  us  at  all  in  the  knowledge  or  cure  of  them.  To  be 
brief— civilized  beings  naturally  are  averse  to  dissections  ;  and  God 


1st  Ffbruary,  1832.  185 

forbid  they  should  ever  become  reconciled  to  them,  or  adieu  to  the 
ties  of  consanguinity,  and  those  devoutly-to-be-admired  sympathies- 
of  our  nature,  for  which  Britons,  1  am  proud  to  confess,  have  been 
renowned  from  time  immemorial.  Thirdly,  Sir,  you  resolve  to- 
legalize  pauper  dissections^  after  the  provisions^  of  foreigners,  and 
speak  of  the  advanta^^es  to  be  derived  from  them.  The  thing  itself 
may  be  politic  enough  in  the  way  of  trade ;  but,  for  the  honour  of 
science,  the  credit  of  the  profession,  and  the  peace  of  society,  I 
conjure  you  to  pause  ere  your  Committee  sanction  with  their  ho- 
noured names  so  degrading^,  and  at  the  same  time  so  uncalled-for 
an  expedient.  Since,  however,  we  must  model  our  practice  and 
schools  of  physic  after  the  fashion  of  the  Frerichy  I  claim  privilege 
briefly  to  advert  to  the  benefits  which  science  and  the  profession 
hitherto  have  derived  from  them. 

"  In  anatomy  and  physiology,  it  must  be  confessed,  the  French 
have  excelled  ;  but  have  they  comparatively  benefited  physic  or 
surgery  by  it?  Have  Drs.  Gall  and  Spurzheim,  by  their  minute, 
dissections  of  the  brain,  added  anything  to  our  knowledge  of  it? 
We  required  not  to  know  the  seat  and  directions  (nor  indeed  the 
functions)  of  its  vast  nerves  and  blood-vessels.  Why,  therefore, 
perplex  ourselves  about  its  mental  developments,  placed,  doubtless,, 
tor  the  wisest  of  purposes,  by  an  inscrutable  Providence,  beyond 
the  reach  or  the  scrutiny  of  man  ?  Nor  have  we  yet  to  learn,— 
thanks  not  to  dissections,  but  experiences — that  the  brain's  de- 
rangement of  circulation  is  productive  of  correspondent  derange^ 
ment  of  function,  and  its  organic  affection,  death.  Bichat,  Brous- 
sais,  and  Majendie,  it  is  due  to  them  to  say,  have  called  attention 
to  mucous  and  serous  surfaces,  hitherto  but  insufficiently  regarded 
(and  imperfectly  understood  by  many)  in  practice.  Notwithstand- 
ing such  acknowledged  advantages,  the  French,  I  affirm,  are  in- 
efficient practitioners.  Do  they  not  to  this  day,  under  the  most 
acute  inflammations  (and  inflammations,  moreover,  of  vital  or- 
gans), content  themselves  with  ptisan?,  syrups,  anodynes,  leech«» 
ings,  and  enemas,  calculated  for  the  relief  only  of  particular  symp- 
toms, leaving  the  malady  itself  to  commit  its  ravages  upon  the  af- 
ected  organ,  or  constitution  generally  ?  How  calamitous  the  con- 
sequences of  tampering  with  the  inflammations  of  vital  organs  ! — 
take,  for  example,  the  lungs.  Has  not  consumption  afforded  us  a 
lesson  ;  bid  defiance  to  our  every  exertion,  in  spite  of  our  discove- 
ries and  dissections  ;  and  are  we  siill  at  a  loss  as  to  its  origin,  or  the 
prevention  (cure  1  maintain  tobe  outof  the  question)  of  it?  If  not, 
why  trifle  (worse  than  trifle)  with  palliatives,  which,  under  fevers 
and  inflammations,  (without  more  efficient  measures)  seal  the 
doom  of  the  patients  ?  A  breath  as  to  their  surgical  eminence,  and 
I  am  done.  Baron  Larry  and  Dupuytrien  have  distinguished  them- 
selves in  surgery ;  but  have  they  not  been  indebted  mainly  to  theic 
experiences  ?  The  former  had  most  extensive  field  and  hospital 
practice  during  the  campaigns  of  the  immortal  Buonaparte  ;  and 
the  latter  for  many  years  has  been  engaged  in  the  performance  of 
vast  hospital  duties,  being  at  this  moment  chief  surgeon  to  the 
Hotel  Dieu,  in  France. 

**  Impressed  with  the  firmest  conviction  (inspired  by  an  almost 
unparalleled  devotedness  to  the  profession)  that  experience,  and  by 


186  Two-penny  Trash; 

no  means  dissections,  qualify  alone  for  successful  practice,  I  have 
been  induced  to  impart  these  solemn  convictions  to  you,  Sir,  in 
justice  to  a  much-injured  profession,  and  compassion  towards  a 
suffering  public,  whose  condition  (in  lieu  of  the  Act  contemplated) 
you  would  best  ameliorate  by  rendering  exhumation  felony,  and 
quackery  fraud. 

'*  Finally,  Sir,  would  mankind  benefit  their  health  or  condition 

in  society,   I  conjure  them,  without  delay,  to  petition  Parliament 

against  a  measure    confessedly  uncalled    for,    and  fraught   with 

sufferance  and  degradation  to  them.     '  Virtus  in  actione  cousistit.* 

**  I  have  the  honour  to  be,  Sir, 

'*  Your  obedient,  humble  servant, 

«*  WM.  HORSLEY,  M.D. 
<'  North  Shields,  Dec.  1828.'* 

Now,  my  friends,  observe,  that  no  answer  was  ever 
given  to  this  letter.  Doctor  Payne,  an  eminent  phy- 
sician of  Nottingham,  has  just  published  a  letter,  sent  by 
him  to  Warburton,  expressing  similar  opinions,  and  con- 
cluding with  the  following  words  : 

'*  There  appears  to  be  a  path  now  presenting  itself,  by  which  the 
detestable  crimes  of  burking  and  violating  the  remains  of  the  dead 
may  be  no  longer  practised.  The  remains  of  murderers  should  as 
usual  be  given  for  dissection,  but  the  bodies  of  none  others  ;  and 
transportation  for  those  who  steal  or  receive  dead  bodies.  A  law 
should  also  be  passed  to  compel  the  teaching  of  anatomy  by  the 
artificial  subject  as  in  France. 

'*  I  hope  the  idea  of  giving  up  the  bodies  of  the  unclaimed  dead 
will  be  immediately  abandoned,  as  it  increases  the  exasperation 
which  is  constantly  souring  the  minds  of  the  working  and  middle 
classes,  and  rendering  it  unsafe  to  dwell  in  the  land.  It  reminds 
them  of  the  words  of  Southey  the  poet : — 

a  c  Wretched  is  the  infant's  lot, 

Born  within  tlie  straw-roofd  cot; 
Be  he  generous,  wise,  or  brave, 
He  must  only  be  a  slave  I 
Long,  long  labour,  little  rest, 
Still  to  toil  to  be  oppressed  ; 
Drained  by  taxes  of  Ijis  store, — 
Punished  next  for  being  poor. 
This  is  the  poor  wretch's  lot. 
Born  within  the  straw-roof'd  cot.' 

^  Yes,  the  people  make  their  remarks,  *  When  we  have  lost  our 
*  all,  and  have  outlived  our  friends  and  relations,  our  hodies  are 
^  to  be  given  up  for  dissection  '  ' 

"  I  remain,  with  much  respect, 

'*  Yours  respectfully, 

**  H.Payne,  M.D. 

^'  Nottingham,  Dec.  10,  1831." 


1st  February,  1832.  187 

Thus,  then,  the  preamble  of  the  bill  is  false  :  this  cuttino^ 
up  of  human  bodies  is  unnecessary  to  the  learning  of  sur- 
gery. But  now,  if  it  ivere  necessary  to  the  perfection  of 
that  science,  still  a  law  like  this  ought  not  to  be  passed  ; 
and  nothing  ought  to  be  done  tending  to  put  the  bodies  of 
the  people  on  a  level  wit/i  the  bodies  of  beasts.  The  asser- 
tion of  the  advocates  of  this  carcass-cutting  system  is  this : 
that  unless  the  carcass  and  cutting  fellows  be  allowed  to 
carry  on  their  practices,  the  knowledge  of  surgery  ivill  be 
impeyfect 'y  and  that,  therefore,  the  hacking  and  bloody 
practice  must  continue,  and  dead  human  bodies  (to  use 
the  vulgar  and  unfeeling  phrase  of  Hume)  must  become 
^'  cheap''  in  the  marhet  -,  or  that  some  complaints  to  which 
we  are  liable  must  remain  ivithout  a  cure,  and  that  many 
persons  would,  of  course,  die  sooner  than  they  would  die, 
if  the  cutting  and  hacking  system  continued,  and  if 
Hume's  cheap  human  jiesh  continued  amply  to  supply  the 
market. 

This  is  the  ASSERTION  on  which  Warburton,  Hume, 
Denman,  and  the  rest  of  them,  ground  their  project  for 
making  human  bodies  *^  CHEAP,''  as  Hume  calls  it  3  and 
the  bill,  taken  along  with  this  argument  of  these  men, 
will,  if  it  become  a  law,  say  this  to  the  nation  :  '^  Your 
'^  dead  bodies  must  be  made  to  come  cheap  to  those  who 
"  deal  in  them  and  cut  them  up ;  or  some  of  you  will  die 
"  sooner  than  you  otherwise  would  die*'  This  is  the  sum 
total  of  all  that  they  have  to  say.  Hume  has  totted  the 
matter  up  ;  and  this  is  the  '^  tottaV  of  it.  And  now,  my 
friends,  hear  my  answer  to  tiiese  advocates  of  free  trade  in 
your  flesh,  blood,  and  bones. 

First  of  all  3  we  have  not  only  the  opinions  of  Dr. 
Horsley  against  the  utility  of  the  butchery,  but  his  opt- 
nion  that  it  is  inischievous ;  and  he  produces  other  high 
authorities  in  support  of  his  opinions.  But  we  have  his 
reasons  in  support  of  the  opinions ;  and  we  have,  as  far  as 
I  have  observed,  had  710  answer  to  these  reasons. 

Next  3  if  this  cutting-up  work  be  so  necessary,  so  in- 
dispensable, to  the  learning  of  surgery  ;  how  comes  it 
that  this  did  not  use  to  be  the  case  ?  How  comes  it  that 
this  traffic  in  human  bodies,  that  the  making  of  human 
flesh  and  bones  ^'  cheap,''  as  Hume  calls  it,  was  never 
found  to   be  necessary   IBEFORE  ?     Men's  bodies  have 


''•«»fK9^n<«iMM< 


188  Two-penny  Trash; 

always  been  constructed  as  they  are  now  -,  they  have  al- 
ways been  subject  to  the  same  ailments  that  they  are  sub- 
ject to  now ;  life  has  always  been  valued  as  highly  as  it 
is  now  ^  and  yet  never  until  now  was  this  cutting  up  and 
hacking  to  pieces  of  the  dead  people  deemed  necessary  to 
the  health  of  the  living  people  3  and  never  until  now  did 
a  band  of  surgeons  take  it  into  their  heads  to  apply  to  the 
government  to  set  aside  the  ancient  law  of  the  land^  in 
order  that  they  might  h?L\'Q  free  trade  in  human  bodies^  to 
cut  up  and  hack  about  at  their  pleasure  !  This  is  like  the 
case  of  the  poor-law -.  it  did  very  well  for  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years ;  but  now  it  is  found  out  that  it  does  harnty 
and  that  STURGES  BOURNE'S  BILLS,  and  HAR- 
NESSING  the  poor,  and  that  DISPOSING  OF  THEIR 
DEAD  BODIES  to  be  cut  up,  are  necessar3%  Strange 
thing,  that  this  Warburton  should  tell  us,  that  he  means 
his  iawyo?'  the  benefit  of  the  poor^  while  he  talks  of  no  law 
to  repeal  Slurges  Bourne's  Bills  -,  no  law  to  put  a  stop  to 
the  harnessing  of  them,  and  making  them  draw  like 
BEASTS  OF  BURDEN  ;  no  law  to  prevent  hired  over- 
seers from  cutting  oflr  the  hair  of  young  girls;  no  law  to 
prevent  them  from  being  treated  like  beasts  -,  and  only  a 
law  to  make  it  no  crime  to  receive  their  dead  bodies  and 
to  hack  them  to  pieces  3  and  this  too  out  of  kindness  to 
them  ! 

So  much  for  authority  and  experience  to  show  that  the 
horrible  traffic  in  human  fiesh  is  not  necessary.  Indeed, 
as  Dr.  HoRSLEY  says,  "it  is  of  no  use  to  anybody  but  illi- 
terate quacks :  it  is,  as  he  says,  the  scandal  and  disgrace 
of  a  most  learned,  honourable,  and  useful  profession. 
Rousseau  said  long  ago,  that  a  great  increase  of  the 
number  of  medical  and  surgical  practitioners  was  a  sure 
sign  of  i\\e,  decay  of  a  nation  :  and  this  is  one  of  the  signs 
of  our  decay  at  this  moment.  But,  all  this  aside  -,  setting 
all  these  arguments  against  the  horrible  practice  down 
for  nothing ;  and  admitting  the  above  assertion  of  the 
advocates  of  free  trade  in  human  bodies  to  be  true : 
admitting  that  your  dead  bodies  must,  in  the  words  of 
Hume  and  Denman,  be  made  *'  cheap  "  to  those  who  cut 
them  up  :  admitting  that  *'  your  dead  bodies  must  be 
made  to  come  cheap  to  those  who  deal  in  them  and  cut 
them  up,  or  that  some  of  you  would  die  sooner  than  you 


1st  February,  1832.  189 

otherwise  would  die,''  I  deny  it  5  but,  let  us,  for  argument's 
sake,  admit  it  in  its  fullest  extent  -,  and  then  let  us  see, 
whether  it  be  not  far  better  that  we  should  be  exposed 
to  the  endurance  of  some,  and  even  io  ^^reat  bodily  ills -, 
and  that  some,  and  even  many  of  us,  should  die  sooner 
than  we  should  if  the  horrible  butchery  were  to  go  on  : 
the  question  is,  whether  this  would  not  be  preferable  to 
the  suflfering  of  this  traffic  to  continue  :  whether  it  would 
not  be  belter  f  r  us  to  endure  these  i)ls,  and  be  subject  to 
these  dangers,  than  to  insure,  even  to  INSURE,  ourselves 
against  them,  by  sanctioning  this  horrible  traffic  in  dead 
bodies  ?  This,  is  the  que.^tlon  :  and  this  question  every 
man  that  has  anything  of  real  humanity  left  about  him, 
every  man  who  cannot  coolly  tot-np  the  value  of  hum^n 
feelings,  will,  without  any  hesitation,  not  only  answer  in 
the  affirmative,  but  will  feel  somewhat  offended  at  the 
question  being  put  to  him. 

Tho^e  who  make  the  above-slated  assertion,  and  who, 
on  its  being  admitted,  seem  to  think  it  conclusive  for  their 
purpose,  proceed  upon  the  truly  base  idea,  that  there  is 
NOTHING  SO  VALUABLE  AS  LIFE;  an  idea  just 
upon  a  level  with  the  instinctive  feeling  of  the  most 
insensible  of  brutes.  But,  is  this  the  idea  of  those  who 
are  worthy  to  be  called  vieu  and  icomen?.  Where  is  the 
man  (worthy  of  that  name)  who  would  not  prefer  the 
death  of  a  wife  or  daughter  to  her  prostitution  ;  where  is 
the  man  (vronhy  of  that  name)  who  would  not  prefer 
his  own  death  to  his  assent  to  such  prostitution  ?  In 
thousands  of  instances,  men  (and  working  men  too)  have, 
gone  to  certain  death,  rather  than  live  with  the  reproach 
of  having  betrayed  other  men.  There  is,  then,  some- 
thing more  valuable  than  life ;  and  is  the  value  of  life,  then, 
to  be  put  in  competition  with  the  value  of  all  those  feelings 
which  distinguish  men  from  brutes  ?  And  all,  yea  all,  these 
feelings  must  be  banished  from  the  breast,  before  the 
mind  will  cease  to  contemplate  with  reverence  and  awe 
the  remains  of  the  dead. 

As  to  theCnRiSTTAN  religion,  it  is  pure,  not  hj^pocrisy, 
but  sheer  impudence,  to  pretend  to  believe  that  it  can 
long  exist  in  a  country  where  the  law  makes  human  bodies 
the  subject  of  open  traffic,  where  it  authorises  the  cutting 
of  them  up,  'the  ripping  and  hacking  of  them  to  pieces. 


190  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

with  no  more  ceremony  than  the  cutting-up  of  the  bodies 
of  sheep  and  pigs.  VVe  all  know,  for  we  have  all  first 
or  last  felt,  that  the  bare  sight  of  a  dead  human  body 
fills  us  with  serious  thoughts,  and  that  even  a  funeral, 
passing  by,  has^  in  some  degree,  the  same  effect.  Can 
this  continue  to  be  the  case,  if  it  shall  become  a  fact 
familiar  to  every  mind^  that  a  human  body  has  belonging 
to  it  nothing  more  sacred  than  the  body  of  a  hog  or  a 
dog  ?  People  of  all  the  sects  of  Christians  have  been  careful 
to  set  apart  places  for  the  burial  of  the  dead.  However 
they  disagree  in  other  matters,  they  are  all  of  accord  in 
this,  to  reverence  the  remains  of  the  dead.  But  how 
is  this  feeling  to  exist,  when  they  shall  know  that  the 
trade  in  dead  bodies  is  frte ;  and  that,  as  Sir  Robert 
Inglis  stales  it,  there  are  always  ''  EIGHT  HUNDRED 
MEN  in  London  "  engaged  in  learning  how  to  cut  human 
bodies  to  pieces! '' 

If  this  law  pass,  what  becomes  of  the  '^  consecration  of 
ground^.  "  What  becomes  of  the  Church  Service  ?  What 
becomes  of  the  Jiubrick;  what  of  **  the  burial  of  the 
deadV*  Dispense  with  that-,  declare,  by  law,  that  that 
is  useless 'j  and,  then,  where  will  th-rebe  to  be  found  even 
a  parson,  though  with  half-a-dozen  benefices,  brazen 
enough  to  tell  any  of  the  people  of  any  of  his  parishes^ 
that  any  part  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  is  worthy 
of  their  attention?  What,  if  a  law  like  this  be  passed,  will 
any  parson,  after  that,  demand  /e<^5  fur  saying  prayers  over 
dead  bodies  ?  It  is  as  well,  for  morals  and  religion,  that 
those  bodies  be  sold  and  cut  up,  as  that  they  be  buried  in  a 
church-yard  with  the  usual  solemnities  5  or,  it  is  not.  If 
the  latter,  the  intended  law  is  injurious  to  morals  and 
religion  :  if  the  former,  we  have  long  been  paying  burial 
fees  merely  to  fatten  the  parsons.  In  short,  it  must  be 
evident  to  every  man  who  reflects  but  for  a  moment,  that 
a  belief  in  a  future  state  of  existence  is  impossible  to  be 
kept  alive,  for  any  length  of  time,  in  a  country  where  the 
law  makes  (as  law  would  make)  no  distinction  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  dead  body  of  a  man  and  that  of  the  dead  body 
of  a  horse  ;  both  being  alike  articles  of  traffic  ;  both  being 
openly  cut  up  for  the  use  of  the  purchaser  j  both  being 
hacked  about  with  an  equal  absence  of  all  ceremony. 

We  all  know  the  power  of  habit -^  we  all  know  that  th.e 


1st  February,  1832.  191 

blackest  crimes  proceed  from  small  beginnings',  theft, 
robbery,  burglary,  murder,  is  generally  the  march.  The 
habit  of  our  thoughts  has  made  the  most  of  men  hesitate 
at  the  commission  of  the  last  horrid  crime  :  they  have 
hitherto  seen  something  in  a  human  body  that  held  back 
their  hands :  but  when,  as  in  the  case  of  the  monster 
Bishop,  they  have  been  accustomed  to  consider  human 
bodies  as  nothing  more  sacred  than  those  of  pigs  and 
sheep,  what  is  to  restrain  them  from  resorting  to  the  kill- 
ing of  those  bodies?  This  bill  may,  perhaps,  not  directly^ 
authorise  the  selling  of  the  bodies  of  poor  people  dying  in 
poor-houses  and  hospitals  and  prisons  5  but  that  such  are 
the  tendency  and  intention  of  it  nobody  can  doubt.  It  is 
well  known,  that  the  rich  have  the  means  of  protecting 
the  dead  bodies  of  their  relations,  and  that  the  poor  have 
not.  And  where  is  the  man  so  brutal  as  to  say  that  his 
heart  is  not  chilled  with  the  thought  of  proclaiming  openly 
to  the  unfortunate  poor,  that  their  carcasses  when  dead  are 
to  be  sold  for  dissection  ?  What  !  is  there  a  man  in  Eng- 
land to  propose  this  ?  And  is  this  proposition  to  be  made 
even  to  the  Parliament,  and  that  too  in  a  country  where 
the  depositories  of  the  dead,  and  the  decent  interment  of 
dead  bodies,  have  always  been  objects  of  such  attention  ? 
Are  there  men  hardy  enough  for  this  ?  What !  the  poor 
labourer,  who,  after  having  toiled  all  his  life  3  after  having 
brought  himself  to  death,  at  a  premature  old  age,  very 
likely,  by  the  excess  of  his  toil  -,  is  he,  because  in  his  old 
age  he  is  compelled  to  resort  to  the  parish  for  relief,  to  be 
harassed  in  his  last  moments  with  the  thought  that  in  a 
few  minutes  the  butchers  will  have  their  knives  in  his 
belly,  and  be  hacking  and  chopping  him  to  pieces  like  the 
carcass  of  a  dead  dog  ?  Oh  !  nj.  England  will  never  see 
this.  Is  the  husband  to  see  his  dead  wife  taken  away  in 
the  butcher's  cart,  and  carried  to  the  slaughter-house, 
instead  of  having  the  mournful  duty  to  perform  of  fol- 
lowing her  to  the  grave  ?  Are  fathers  and  mothers  to  see 
their  children,  and  are  children  to  see  their  parents,  tossed 
into  the  bloody  cart  and  carried  away  for  dissection  ?  The 
very  thought  fills  me,  and  I  trust  it  will  fill  every  English- 
man who  is  worthy  of  the  name,  with  indignation  not  to 
be  expressed. 

The  working  people  in  the  country  have  given  the  best 


195     Two-penny  Trash;  1st  February,  1832. 

possible  proof  of  their  abhorrence  of  any  law,  having 
such  a  tendency,  by  fornming  themselves  into  CLUBS  for 
the  purpose  of  providing  the  means  of  WATCHING 
THEIR  OWN  GRAVES,  AND  THOSE  OF  THEIR 
NEAR  AND  DEAR  RELATIONS;  a  fact  to  their  ever- 
lasting  honour,  and  to  the  everlasting  disgrace  of  those 
who  have  rendered  this  measure  necessary.  Talk  of  Re" 
form^  indeed!  The  people  will  be  able  easily  to  estimate 
the  character  and  views  of  those  "  Ileformers  *'  who  want 
to  make  dead  human  bodies  '''cheap'*  in  the  dissecting 
market!  This  is  now,  apparently,  become  a  measure  of 
the  "  Reforming  Ministry,''  The.people  will  at  last  have 
to  rely,  I  dare  £ay,  upon  the  Lords  Vi^^m  ;  and  if  they  drive 
this  bill  from  them  with  indignation,  they  will  not  only  act 
justly,  but  wis^ily  3  and  will,  by  this  one  act,  do  more  for 
the  honour  and  stability  of  their  order,  than  by  all  the 
other  means  that  human  vnt  would  be  able  to  devise. 

Now,  my  friends,  keep  your  eye  on  all  those  whom  you 
perceive  to  be  171  favour  of  this  bill.  I  will  do  my  best  to 
place  them  safely  upon  record.  For  my  part,  my  deter- 
mination is,  that  if  this  bill  pass,  to  do  my  utmost  to  cause 
its  repeal,  and  never  to  hold  any  confidential  intercourse 
with  any  one  of  those  who  may  have  supported  it.  And  in 
the  meanwhile  I  remain  your  friend, 

Wm.  cobbett. 


£Printedby  Wm.  Cobbett,  Johnson's-court, Fleet-street.] 


No.  9.  Vol  II. 


COBBEXrS 

TWO-PENNY   TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  April,  1832. 


Published  monthly ,  sold  at  12*.  a  hundred,  and  for  300,  taken  at 

once,  lis. 


TO    THE 

PEOPLE  OF  PRESTON, 

1.  On  the  Cultivation  of  Cobbett's   Corn, 

2.  On  the  Lies  of  the  FOOL-LIAR  respecting    it,  and 

particularly  on  his  Lies  relative  to  Mr,  Did  dams, 
of  Sutton  Scotney  in  Hampshire, 

3.  On  his  Charges  against  Mitchell  and  Smithsok. 


Kensington,  1  Jpril,  1 832, 
My  Friends, 
Great  as  has  been  my  satisfaction  at  seeing  the  succe&s 
of  my  corn  generally,  it  has  in  hardly  any  case  been  so 
great  as  in  learning  its  success  at,  and  in  the  neighbourhood 
of,  Preston,  where  I  saw  so  many  fine  specimens,  and 
where  I  saw  every  prospect  of  a  great  extension  of  the  ciiU 
tivation  of  the  corn.  I  am  now  about  to  repeat  my  instruc* 
tions  for  raising  the  corn  ;  and  I  address  myself  to  you 
in  particular,  because  you  have  the  misfortune  to  have  to  do 
with  the  FOOL-LIAR,  who  has  been  making  all  the  efforts 
that  his  beastly  stupidity  would  permit  him  to  make  for  the 
purpose  of  preventing  the  working  people  from  benefiting 
from  this,  as  Arthur  Young  calls  it,  "  the  greatest  bles- 
sing that  God  ever  gave  to  manT     It  is  curious  enough 

London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court^  Fleet-street, 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 
K 


194  Two-penny  Trash; 

that  the  fool-liar  should  so  cordially  pull  with  the  par- 
sons in  this  aflPair;  for  I  have  heard  of  several  of  them 
who  have  told  the  working  people  that  the  corn  was  good 
for  nothing  ;  and  I  know  one  of  the  latter,  who  had  fatted 
a  pig  upon  the  corn,  hold  up  a  piece  of  the  bacon  to  the 
parson,  saying,  "  Is't  good  for  nought!''  However,  I  will 
first  give  3"ou  my  instructions  for  the  raising  of  the  corn, 
and  then  the  fool-liar  shall  yield  us  some  sport,  and  we 
will  find  out^  if  w^e  can,  where  that  **  jjatrimony  "  is  of 
which  he  told  you  he  had  **jusl  received  the  rents/'  when 
he  was  called  upon  to  pay  for  **  the  medals,'* 

Before  I  proceed  further,  however,  I  ought  to  notice,  that 
when  I  returned  home  the  other  day,  I  found  numerous  par^ 
eels  of  corn  from  different  counties,  and  amongst  the  rest, 
one  parcel  grown  in  Westmoreland,  So  that  I  have  now  re- 
ceived fine  well-ripened  corn  from  every  county  in  England, 
Cornwall  excepted.  The  corn  which  I  have  now  re- 
ceived from  Sutton -Valence  in  Kent,  from  Hlgh- Wy- 
combe, Bucks,  and  three  ears  that  came  without  any  name, 
wrapped  up  in  wool,  are  amongst  the  finest  samples  that  I 
have  seen,  and  all  of  them  finer  than  the  average  of  my  own 
corn  ;  and  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  all  the  gentlemen  who 
have  taken  the  pains  to  send  me  these  samples.  I  would 
write  to  each  of  them  if  I  had  the  time ;  but  I  have  it  not. 
They  will  have  the  satisfaction  to  see  their  cares  and  public 
spirit  rewarded  by  the  success  of  our  undertakings  and 
they  will  have  the  pleasure  to  reflect,  that  the  thing  has  been 
accomplished,  notonly  without  the  aid,  but,  apparently,  solely 
against  the  wishes  of  the  government !  Oh,  no  !  it  is  not 
corn;  not  puddings  and  bread  and  bacon  that  they  want 
the  working  people  to  have:  ''  nice  'talies" 2Lre  their  favour- 
ites ;  80  that  they  may  have  the  meat  and  bread  for  them- 
selves, and  for  those  who  uphold  and  wait  on  them !  The 
Irish' diet  (for  English  labourers)  is  their  favourite  ;  but  the 
English  labourers  will  not,  thank  God,  live  on  it ;  and  I  hope 
that  the  Irish  will  not  do  it  much  longer.  The  sword- bear* 
ing  police  do  not,  I  warrant  them,  live  on  "  nice  mealy 
taties." 


1st  April,  1832.  195 

Instructions  to  Labourers  for  raising 
Cobbett's  Corn. 

I  will  first  describe  this  corn  to  you.  It  is  that  which  is 
sometimes  called  Indian  corn;  and  sometimes  people  call 
it  Indian  wheat.  It  is  that  sort  of  corn  which  the  disciples 
ate  as  they  were  going  up  to  Jerusalem  on  the  Sabbath-day, 
They  gathered  it  in  the  fields  as  they  went  along  and  ate  it 
green,  they  being  **  an  hungered,"  for  which,  you  know^ 
they  were  reproved  by  the  pharisees.  I  have  written  a  trea- 
tise on  this  corn,  in  a  book,  which  I  sell  for  two  and  six* 
pence,  giving  a  minute  account  of  the  qualities,  the  culture, 
the  harvesting,  and  the  various  uses  of  this  corn ;  but  I 
fihall  here  confine  myself  to  what  is  necessary  for  a  labourer 
to  know  about  it,  so  that  he  may  be  induced  to  raise,  and 
3Knay  be  enabled  to  raise  enough  of  it  in  his  garden  to  fat  a 
pig  of  ten  score. 

There  are  a  great  many  sorts  of  this  corn.  They  all 
come  from  countries  which  are  hotter  than  England.  This 
Bort,  which  my  eldest  son  brought  into  England,  is  a  dwarf 
idnd,  and  is  the  only  kind  that  I  have  known  to  ripen  in 
this  country :  and  I  know  that  it  will  ripen  in  this  country  in 
any  summer ;  for  I  had  a  large  field  of  it  in  1 828  and  1 829  ; 
and  last  year  (my  lease  at  my  farm  being  out  at  Michael- 
jnas,  and  this  corn  not  ripening  till  late  in  October)  I  had 
about  two  acres  in  my  garden  at  Kensington.  Within  the 
^aiemory  of  man  there  have  not  been  three  summers  so  cold 
as  the  last,  one  after  another  ;  and  no  one  so  cold  as  the 
last.  Yet  my  corn  ripened  perfectly  well,  and  this  you 
will  be  satisfied  of  if  you  be  amongst  the  men  to  whom  this 
corn  is  given  from  me.  You  will  see  that  it  is  in  the  shape 
•of  the  cone  of  a  spruce  fir  ;  you  will  see  that  the  grains  are 
fixed  round  a  stalk  which  is  called  the  coi).  These  stalks 
or  ears  come  out  of  the  side  of  the  plant  which  has  leaves 
like  a  flag,  which  plant  grows  to  about  three  feet  high,  and 
kas  two  or  three,  and  sometimes  more,  of  these  ears  or 
bunches  of  grain.  Out  of  the  top  of  the  plant  comos  the- 
tassel,  which  resembles  the  plumes  of  leathers  upon  a 
ihearse  ;  and  this  is  the  fiower  of  the  plant. 

The  grain  is,  as  you  will  see,  about  the  size  of  a  large 
:pea,  and  there  are  from  two  to  three  hundred  of  these  grains 

K  2 


196  Two-penny  Trash; 

upon  the  ear,  or  cob.  In  my  treatise  I  have  shown  that,  in 
America,  all  the  hogs  and  pigs,  all  the  poultry  of  every  sort, 
the  greater  part  of  the  oxen,  and  a  considerable  part  of  the 
sheep,  are  fatted  upon  this  corn ;  that  it  is  the  best  food  for 
horses ;  and  that,  when  ground  and  dressed  in  various  ways, 
it  is  used  in  bread,  in  puddings,  in  several  other  ways  in  fa- 
milies, and  that,  in  short,  it  is  the  real  staff  of  life,  in  all 
the  countries  where  it  is  in  common  culture,  and  where  the 
climate  is  hot.  When  used  for  poultry,  the  grain  is  rubbed 
off  the  cob.  Horses,  sheep,  and  pigs,  bite  the  grain  off,  and 
leave  the  cob  ;  but  horned  cattle  eat  cob  and  all. 

I  am  to  speak  of  it  to  you,  however,  only  as  a  thing  to 
make  you  some  bacon,  for  which  use  it  surpasses  all  other 
grain  whatsoever.  When  the  grain  is  in  the  whole  ear,  it  is 
called  corn  in  the  ear ;  when  it  is  rubbed  off  the  cob,  it  is 
called  shelled  corn.  Now,  observe,  ten  bushels  of  shelled 
corn  are  equal,  in  the  fatting  of  a  pig,  to  fifteen  bushels  of 
barley  ;  and  fifteen  bushels  of  barley,  if  properly  ground  and 
managed,  will  make  a  pig  of  ten  score,  if  he  be  not  too  poor 
when  you  begin  to  fat  him.  Observe  that  everybody  who 
has  been  in  America  knows,  that  the  finest  hogs  in  the  world 
are  fatted  in  that  country ;  and  no  man  ever  saw  a  hog 
fatted  in  that  country  in  any  other  way  than  tossing  the  ears 
of  corn  over  to  him  in  the  sty,  leaving  him  to  bite  it  off  the 
ear,  and  deal  with  it  according  to  his  pleasure.  The  finest 
and  solidest  bacon  in  the  world  is  produced  in  this  way. 

Now,  then,  I  know,  that  a  bushel  of  shelled  corn  may  be 
growm  upon  one  single  rood  of  ground,  sixteen  feet  and  a 
half  each  way.  I  have  grown  more  than  that  this  last 
summer  ;  and  any  of  you  may  do  the  same  if  you  will  strictly 
follow  the  instructions  which  I  am  now  about  to  give  you. 

1.  Late  in  March  (I  am  doing  it  now),  or  in  the  first 
ibrtnight  of  April,  dig  your  ground  up  very  deep,  and  let  it 
lie  rough  till  between  the  seventh  and  fifteenth  of  May. 

2.  Then  (in  dry  weather  if  possible)  dig  up  the  ground 
again,  and  make  it  smooth  at  top.  Draw  drills  with  a  line 
two  feet  apart,  just  as  you  do  drills  for  peas ;'  rub  the  grains 
off  the  cob  3  put  a  little  very  rotten  and  fine  manure  along 
the  bottom  of  the  drill ;  lay  the  grains  along  upon  that  six 
inches  apart ;  cover  the  grain  over  with  fine  earth,  so  that 
there  be  about  an  inch  and  a  half  on  the  top  of  the  grain ; 


1st  April,  1832.  197 

pat  the  earth  down  a  little  with  the  back  of  a  hoe  to  make 
it  lie  solid  on  the  grain. 

3.  If  there  be  any  danger  of  slugs,  you  must  kill  them 
before  the  corn  comes  up  if  possible ;  and  the  best  way  to 
do  this  is  to  put  a  little  hot  lime  in  a  bag,  and  go  very  early 
in  the  morning,  and  shake  the  bag  all  round  the  edges  of  the 
ground  and  over  the  ground.  Doing  this  three  or  four  times 
very  early  in  a  dewy  morning  or  just  after  a  shower,  will 
destroy  all  the  slugs:  and  this  ought  to  be  done  for  all  other 
crops  as  well  as  for  that  of  corn. 

4.  When  the  corn  comes  up,  you  must  take  care  to  keep 
all  birds  off  till  it  is  two  or  three  inches  high  ;  for  the  spear 
is  so  sweet,  that  the  birds  of  all  sorts  are  very  apt  to  peck  it 
off,  particularly  the  doves  and  the  larks  and  pigeons.  As 
soon  as  it  is  fairly  above  ground,  give  the  whole  of  the  ground 
(in  dry  weather)  a  flat  hoeing,  and  be  sure  to  move  all  the 
ground  close  round  the  plants.  When  the  weeds  begin  to 
appear  again,  give  the  ground  another  hoeing,  but  always  in 
dry  weather.  When  the  plants  get  to  be  about  a  foot  high 
or  a  little  more,  dig  the  ground  between  the  rows,  and  work 
the  earth  up  a  little  against  the  stems  of  the  plants. 

5.  About  the  middle  of  August  you  will  see  the  tassel 
springing  up  out  of  the  middle  of  the  plant,  and  the  ears 
coming  out  of  the  sides.  If  weeds  appear  in  the  ground 
hoe  it  again  to  kill  the  weeds,  so  that  the  ground  may  be 
always  kept  clean.  About  the  middle  of  September  you  will 
find  the  grains  of  the  ears  to  be  full  of  milk,  just  in  the  state 
that  the  ears  were  at  Jerusalem  when  the  disciples  cropped 
them  to  eat  From  this  milky  state  they,  like  the  grains  of 
wheat,  grow  hard ;  and  as  soon  as  the  grains  begin  to  be 
hard,  you  should  cut  off  the  tops  of  the  corn  and  the  long 
flaggy  leaves,  and  leave  the  ears  to  ripen  upon  the  stalk  or 
stem.  If  it  be  a  warm  summer,  they  will  be  fit  to  harvest 
by  the  last  of  October ;  but  it  does  not  signify  if  they  re- 
main out  until  the  middle  of  November  or  even  later.  The 
longer  they  staj^  out  the  harder  the  grain  will  be. 

6.  Each  ear  is  covered  in  a  very  curious  manner  with  a 
husk.  The  best  way  for  you  will  be  when  you  gather  in 
your  crop  to  strip  off  the  husks,  to  tie  the  ears  in  bunches  of 
six  or  eight  or  ten,  and  to  hang  them  up  to  nails  in  the  w^alls, 
or  against  the  beams  of  your  house ;  for  there  is  so  much 


198  Two-penny  Trash; 

moisture  in  the  cob  that  the  ears  are  apt  to  heat  if  put 
together  in  great  parcels.  The  room  in  which  I  write  in 
London  is  now  hung  all  round  with  bunches  of  this  corn. 
The  bunches  may  be  hung  up  in  a  shed  or  stable  for  a  while, 
and,  when  perfectly  dry,  they  may  be  put  into  bags. 

7.  Now,  as  to  the  mode  of  using  the  corn  :  if  for  poultry, 
you  must  rub  the  grains  off  the  cob ;  but  if  for  pigs,  give 
them  the  whole  ears.  You  will  find  some  of  the  ears  in 
which  the  grain  is  still  soft.  Give  these  to  your  pig  first ; 
and  keep  the  hardest  to  the  last.  You  will  soon  see  how 
much  the  pig  will  require  in  a  day,  because  pigs,  more  de- 
cent than  many  rich  men,  never  eat  any  more  than  is  neces* 
sary  to  them.  You  will  thus  have  a  pig  ;  you  will  have  two 
flitches  of  bacon,  twopig*s  cheeks^  one  set  of  souse,  two  gris* 
kins,  two  spare-ribs. 

It  is  quite  sufficient,  that  the  corn  will  fat  hogs  better  than 
any  other  thing  will  fat  them  :  it  need  do  nothing  else, 
considering  the  amount  of  the  crop,  to  make  it  more 
valuable  than  any  other  crop.  But,  as  food  for  man,  it  is 
more  valuable  even  than  wheat ;  because  it  can  be  conve- 
niently used  in  so  many  ways.  We  use  the  corn-flour,  in 
my  family,  first,  as  breads  two- thirds  wheaten  and  one- 
third  corn-flour;  second,  in  batter  puddings  baked,  a 
pound  of  flour,  a  quart  of  water,  two  eggs,  though  these  last 
are  not  necessary;  third,  in  plum-puddings,  ?l  pound  of 
flour,  a  pint  of  water,  half  a  pound  of  suet,  the  plums,  and 
no  eggs;  fourth,  in  plain  suet-puddings,  and  the  same 
wa}^  omitting  the  plums;  fifth,  in  little  round  dump '^ 
lings,  with  suet  or  without,  and  though  they  are  apt  to 
break,  they  are  very  good  in  this  way  ;  in  broth,  to  thicken 
it,  for  which  use  it  is  beyond  all  measure  better  than 
ivheaten-flour. 

Now,  to  make  BREAD,  the  following  are  the  instructions 
which  I  have  received  from  Mr.  Sapsford,  baker,  No.  20, 
the  corner  of  Queen- Anne-street,  Wimpole-street,  Mary- 
bonne.  As  I  have  frequently  observed,  the  corn-flour  is  not 
iBO  adhesive,  that  is  to  say,  clammy  as  the  wheat  and  rye 
flour  are.  It  is,  therefore,  necessary ;  cr,  at  least,  it  is  best 
to  use  it,  one-third  corn-flour  and  two-thirds  wheat  or  rye 
flour.  The  rye  and  the  corn  do  not  make  bread  so  bright  a« 
the  wheat  and  the  corn,  nor  quite  so  light ;  but  it   is  a« 


1st  April,  1832,  199 

good  bread  as  I  ever  wish  to  eat,  and  I  would  always  have 
it  if  I  could.  Now,  for  the  instructions  to  make  bread  with 
wheat-flour  and  corn-flour.  Suppose  you  are  going  to  bake 
a  batch,  consisting  of  thirty  pounds  of  flour ;  you  will  have, 
of  course,  twenty  pounds  of  wheat-flour  and  ten  pounds  of 
corn-flour.  Set  your  sponge  with  the  wheat-flour  only.  As 
soon  as  you  have  done  that,  put  ten  pints  of  water  (warm  in 
cold  weather,  and  cold  in  hot  weather)  to  the  corn-flour ; 
and  mix  the  flour  up  with  the  water  ;  and  there  let  it  be  for 
the  present.  When  the  wheat  sponge  has  risen,  and  has 
fallen  again,  take  the  v;etted-up  corn-flour,  and  work  it  ia 
with  the  wheat  sponge,  and  with  the  dry  wheat-flour  that 
has  been  round  the  sponge.  Let  the  whole  remain  ferment-* 
ing  together  for  about  half  an  hour  3  and  then  make  up  the 
loaves  and  put  them  into  the  oven.  The  remainder  of  the 
process  every  one  knows.  These  instructions  I  have,  as  I 
said  before,  from  Mr.  Sapsford  ;  and  I  recollect  also  that 
this  is  the  way  in  which  the  Americans  make  their  bread. 
The  bread  in  Long  Island  is  made  nearly  always  with  rye 
and  corn-flour,  that  being  a  beautiful  country  for  rye,  and 
Dot  so  very  good  for  wheat.  I  should  add  here,  that  there 
is  some  little  precaution  necessary  with  regard  to  the  grind- 
ing of  the  corn.  The  explanation  given  to  me  is  this :  that 
to  do  it  well,  it  ought  to  be  ground'twice,  and  between  stones 
such  are  used  in  the  grinding  of  cone-wheat,  which  is  a 
bearded  wheat,  which  some  people  call  rivets.  This,  how- 
ever, is  a  difficulty  which  will  be  got  over  at  once  as  soon  as 
there  shall  be  only  ten  small  fields  of  this  corn  in  a  county. 
Now,  my  friends,  observe,  that,  do  what  you  will,  yoif 
cannot  get  more  than  about  two  gallons  of  wheat  on  a  rod 
of  ground  (16^  feet  square),  when  you  can  always,  with  pro- 
per care,  get  eight  gallons  of  corn  ;  that  half  a  single  ear 
of  corn  will  plant  the  rod  ;  that  a  rod  of  wheat  requires  for 
seed  a  tenth-part  of  the  crop ;  that  there  must  be  a  floor^ 
to  thrash  and  winnow  the  wheat,  and  that  the  corn  may  be 
ahelled  by  the  fire-side.  If  a  poor  man  have  a  little  bil  of 
wheat,  he  finds  it  very  difficult  to  do  anything  with  it; 
but  a  bit  of  corn  he  can  manage  as  well  as  a  great  farmer 
can  manage  his  fields.  If  he  have  a  garden  of  only  ten  rods, 
only  think  of  the  value  of  ten  times  215  pounds  of  flour; 
1?,150  pounds,  or  within  a  trifle  of  six  pounds  of  flour  a  day 


200  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

for  the  whole  year,  besides  210  pounds  of  offal,  enough  to 
fat,  with  some  properly-cooked  potatoes,  a  good  hog  !  But 
while  the  instances  of  this  crop  of  a  bushel  to  the  statute  rod 
are  innumerable,  let  us  suppose  the  average  crop  to  be  one 
half  of  this.  Then  there  is  nearly  three  pounds  of  flour 
a  day  all  the  year  round,  and  half  enough  offal  to  fat  a 
hog;  and,  observe,  I  do  not  here  include  the  value  of  the 
fodder ,  vj\\\c\i  is  very  great;  and,  mind,  the  corn  is  only 
five  months  on  the  ground. 

But,  in  short,  I  need  write  no  more  on  this  subject :  the 
fine  corn  that  1  have  received  from  all  parts  of  the  country 
convinces  me,  that  I  have  done  this  great  thing  for  my 
country,  and  especially  for  the  Labouring  People,  to  reduce 
whom  to  live  upon  potatoes  was  the  damned  scheme, 
which  the  sensible  and  resolute  Labourers  have  defeated. 
''  WE  WILL  NOT  LIVE  UPON  POTATOES."  When 
the  men  of  Kent  raised  that  motto,  the  fate  of  the  tithes 
and  the  funds  was  sealed.  If  Englishmen  could  have  been 
reduced  to  live  upon  potatoes;  if  they  could  have  been 
brought  down  to  the  Irish  scale,  the  basest  of  slavery  would 
have  been  the  lot  of  us  all!  The  whole  people  owe  their 
deliverance  to  the  men  of  Kent.  Ay,  ay  !  The  Whigs 
may  go  on  with  their  arming  and  with  their  other  works; 
but  all  will  be  of  no  avail,  since  they  cannot  make  the  mil- 
lions of  labourers  live  upon  potatoes.  I  read,  in  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  new  Mechanics*  Institute,  at  Manchester,  a 
speech,  in  which  it  is  remarked,  and  with  apparent  pride^ 
that  the  members  of  Mechanics'  Institutes  NEVER  RIOT! 
No,  *^  intellectual  souls:  not  they!  They  commit  no 
violences !  **  Nice  taties,"  and  sea-weed  and  nettles,  and 
shell-fish  that  have  died  a  natural  death  ;  these  keep  their 
"  intellect^'  unclouded  by  the  load  on  the  stomach.  I  am 
for  loading  the  stomach  with  bacon  and  bread :  the  load 
may,  indeed,  be  rather  less  *'  celestial,*'  less  abstracted  from 
earthly  matter ;  but,  the  body  is  all  the  better  for  the  load- 
ing; and,  one  would  think,  that  mechanics  stood  in  need  of 
bodies  too. 

But,  now  for  the  FOOL-LIAR,  in  connexion,  in  the  first 
place,  with  this  corn.  The  fellow  has  as  much  low  cunning 
as  any  animal  that  ever  existed,  and  his  disregard  of  truth 
is  equal  to  that  of  a  Negro,    Those  who  have  had  to  do  with 


1st  April,  1832.  201 

Negroes,  know  how  difficult  it  is  to  make  them  perceive  the 
difference  between  falsehood  and  truth.     Not  one  in   a 
thousand  of  them  can  be  made  to  see  any  reason  whyjhey 
should  not  say  that  which  it  suits  them  to  say  at  the  mo^ 
ment.     The  master  of  a  black  fellow,  in  Long  Island,  who 
Lad  been  sent  to  fetch  up  a  cow  out  of  the  pasture,  said, 
when  the  fello\V  came  with  the  cow,  **  Did  you  put  up  the 
bars    to   keep  the  oxen  in?"    ^^  0   yes,    Massa!'*     There 
was  a  barn,  round  the  end  of  which  he  had  come  with  the 
cow,  and   the  words  were  hardly  out  of  his  mouth,  before 
the  oxen  came  round  the  end  of  the  barn  !  "  Why,"  said  I, 
*'  that  fellow  cannot  reason   any   more  than   a   beast ;  for, 
**  otherwise,  he  must  have  known  that  you  would  detect  the 
'^  lie  in  a  minute.*'     *'  Oh  '."said  he,  **  a  minute  is  a  long 
*' while:  he  would  swear  that  he  was  not  eating  peaches, 
**  if  you  were  to  tax  him  with  it,  with  peaches  in  his  hands 
"and  with   his  mouth   crammed    with   the   pulp."     Your 
FOOL- LIAR  seems  to  be,  in  this  respect,  upon  a  perfect 
equality   with  the  Negroes,     He   has   all  their   animal- 
cunning  ;  and  all  their  disregard  of  truth  ;  or,  rather,  their 
want  of  capacity  to  distinguish  between  truth  and  falsehood. 
These  two  qualities  would  carry  him  very  far,   were  it  not 
for  the  counteracting  power  of  his  all-predominant  malig» 
nity.     The  lying  of  the  Negroes  is  of  little  avail  to  them, 
because  nobody  believes  them  ;  because  it  is  the  fashion  of 
the  community  never  to  believe  a  word  that  they  say.     But, 
it  is  difficult  to  bring  ourselves  to  look  upon  a  white  man  in 
this  light.    Yet,  as  you  will  presently  be  convinced  (if  you 
be  not  already),  as  far  at  least  as  relates  to  this  corn-af" 
fair,  your  FOOL-LIAR  must  be  looked  upon  in  precisely 
this  light ;   and  it  is  truly  curious  that,  at  the  last  Somerset- 
shire election,  they  ^should  have  held  up  a  Negro  to  call 
him  **  brother  Blackey-man  /" 

Last  year,  at  this  time,  I  published  the  names  and  ad- 
dresses of  the  gentlemen,  in  each  county,  to  whom  I  was 
about  to  send  corn,  free  of  all  cost,  even  carriage  free,  for 
them  to  distribute  gratis,  in  their  several  neighbourhoods, 
especially  amongst  the  labourers.  It  seemed  impossible  for 
the  devil  himself  to  find  a  bad  motive  in  this;  yet  the 
FOOL-LIAR,  seeing  ia  this  list  the  names  and  addresses 
of  a  number  of  persons,  who,  he  naturally  supposed,  had  a 

K  5 


20%  Two-penny  Trash; 

respect  for  me,  availed  himself  of  the  power  that  YOU  HAD 
GIVEN  HIM  TO  FRANK  LETTERS,  to  send  to  each  of 
these  persons  a  printed  paper,  most  infamously  slandering 
me,  signed  with  his  name ;  and,  to  this  infamous  publica- 
tion he  added,  zn  manuscript,  that  the  corn  was  "'  A 
FRAUD;"  and  he  begged  the  persons  to  whom  he  address- 
ed the  letters,  not,  by  any  means,  to  give  it  to  the  poor 
people  to  plant ! 

As  I  said  before,  as  to  truth  and  falsehood,  be  is  on  a 
level  with  the  blacks ;  but,  having  low  cunning  also  equal 
to  theirs,  one  wonders  how  he  could  have  thus  made  sure  of 
his  detection  as  LIAR,  by  so  many  documents  under  bis 
own  hand  ;  and  at  this  every  one  must  wonder,  until  tkey 
reflect  on  the  power  of  the  fellow's  malignity,  which  is  so 
•great  that  it  overpowers  all  his  Negro- like  cunning.     I  re- 
member  Farmer   Brazier  of  Worth,  in   Sussex,  w^here 
THE  LIAR  lived   for  a  while,  saying,  that  at  times,  his 
very  look  was  so  malignant,  that  if  a  drop  were  to  fall  from 
his  eyes,  it  would  burn  cloth,  or  any  other  substance,  lik« 
nqiia  for  lis !     This  was  a  strong  figure,  to  be  sare;  but 
really  if  we  look  at  the  fellow^'s  conduct  about  this  com,  w»e 
cannot  help  believing  that  the  farmer  was  right.  The  fellow 
is  monstrously  ignorant,  to  be  sure :  I  remember  him  tilling 
his  audience,  **  I  have  lautely  bin  in  Normany,  Genmun;  a 
^xedit  forren  country  in  Vrance,  Genmun."    But  brutally 
ignorant  as  he  is,  he  knew  that  his  lies  upon  this  subject 
must  he  detected  at  the  end  of  about  six  months.     Yet  so 
great  was  his  malignity,  so  deadly  was  his  hatred  of  me^ 
that  he  put  forth   this  lie  with  as  much  alacrity  as  if  tlie 
saving  of  his  own  carcase  from  a  beating  (upon  wbicVi 
point  he  is  very  tender !)  had  depended  upon  the  success  of 
the  lie. 

The  six  months  ended  ;  the  lie  w^as  exposed  ;  two  thou* 
sand  and  forty -three  persons,  more  than  half  of  them 
farm- labourers,  have  (by  themselves  or  neighbours)  sent 
me  samples  of  their  crops ;  all  sending  expressions  of  gra- 
titude;  M  deVighted -with  then  future  prospects ;  marrj^  of 
them  execrating  the  slanderous  liar;  and  more  of  them 
expressing  their  contempt  of  so  beastly  a  fool,  viho  has 
thus  sent  documents  all  over  the  countr}^,  signed  by  himself, 
to  be  at  all  times  produced,  if  necessary,  to  prove  Wm  £i)ol 


1st  April,  1832.  203 

and  liar,  without  an  equal  in  the  world,  amongst  either 
blacks  or  whites.  But  now  let  me  exhibit  to  you  in  detail 
some  of  the  works  of  this  malignant  liar ;  and  then,  I  think, 
you  will  agree  with  Farmer  Brazier  in  the  aqua-fortis 
opinion. 

You  may  remember  that,  in  the  Trash  for  December 
last,  and  in  the  Register  of  the  third  of  that  month,  I  pub- 
lished a  letter  from  Mr.  Enos  Diddams  of  Sutton  Scotney, 
near  Winchester,  giving  me  an  account  of  the  fine  crops  of 
corn,  growed  by  the  labourers  and  others,  in  that  and  the 
adjoining  parishes,  composing  those  which  I  have  called 
^*The  Little  Hard  Parishes/'  Mr.  Djddams  is  a 
Village  shoemaker,  a  man  very  much  respected,  and  he 
recommended  himself  to  my  notice  by  his  zealous  endeavours 
to  save  several  of  the  men  who  were  transported  by  the 
Special  Commission  in  Hampshire.  I  went,  in  the  fall 
of  1830,  to  find  out  the  Widow  Mason,  and  I  was  directed 
to  this  Mr.  Diddams,  as  a  person  likely  to  give  me  infor- 
mation. I  have  known  him  ever  since^  and  from  all  that 
I  have  seen  and  heard  of  him,  I  believe  him  to  be  a  worthy 
man.  Now,  observe,  on  the  4th  of  December  last,  I  heard 
that  THE  LIAR  had  been  received  into,  and  entertained 
in,  the  house  of  a  man  in  Hampshire,  who  bad  been,  and 
was,  ill  the  habit  of  corresponding  and  otherwise  communi- 
cating with  me ;  whereupon  I  at  once  told  the  latter  that 
the  communication  between  him  and  me  must  cease.  Upon 
this  he  observed  to  me,  that  THE  LIAR  had  been  received 
ulso  by  Mr,  Diddams,  and  that  Mr.  Diddams  would,  he 
was  sure,  hold  correspondence  with  THE  LIAR.  I  be- 
Heved  neither  of  these:  1  did  not  believe  that  Mr.  Diddams 
would  let  the  fellow  into  his  house,  if  he  knew  who  he  was ; 
and,  as  to  corresponding  with  him,  I  was  sure  that  Mr. 
Diddams  would  have  his  hand  chopped  off  rather  than 
doit. 

However,  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Diddams  to  tell  me  what 
THE  LIAR  said  to  him,  and  how  he  received  him.  In 
answer  I  received  two  letters  from  Mr.  Diddams,  which  I 
shall  insert  here,  without  the  smallest  alteration,  either  in 
spelling,  pointing,  or  any-thing  else.  It  is  the  plain  state- 
ment of  a  plain  and  sensible  man,  and  a  man  of  honesty 
a,nd  sincerity.     When  at  Manchester,  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Did- 


204  Two-penny  Trash; 

DAMS,  asking  his  leave  to  publish  the  letters:  he  gave  me 
leave,  as  you  will  see  in  an  extract  from  a  third  letter. 
After  this  I  showed  the  letters  in  Lancashire  and  York- 
shire,  particularly  at  Leeds.  You  will  see  what  use  THE 
LIAR  made  of  Tiis  having  got  into  Mr.  Diddams's  house; 
and  I  told  my  other  correspondent  in  Hampshire  that  this 
would  be  the  case;  and  that,  therefore,  I  must  cease  all 
correspondence  with  him. 

MR.  DIDDAMS's  first  LETTER. 

Sutton  Scotney,  Dec.  6,  1831. 
Sir, — Hunt  call'd  on  rae  munday  week  past.  You  wish  to  koow 
what  he  said  to  me  and  how  1  received  bim.  I  do  not  know  a  bet- 
ter way  to  explain  it  to  you  than  to  relate  the  whole  of  the  conver- 
sation that  passed  between  us  as  far  as  1  can  recolect.  He  stoped  at 
the  Wicket  in  his  gigg,  1  went  out  to  him,  I  did  not  know  who  he 
waSj  he  call'd  me  by  name,  and  asked  me  if  I  was  not  a  grower  of 
Cobhett's  corn,  I  said  yes,  he  said  he  should  like  to  see  some.  I 
said  walk  in  Sir,  I  will  help  you  to  the  site  of  some  Directly.  I 
showed  him  my  corn  what  I  had  in  the  ear  and  also  what  I  had 
sheli'd.  He  said  it  was  very  fine,  never  saw  any  riper  or  better,  he 
asked  me  what  I  meant  to  do  with  it;  I  told  him,  that  in  the  ear  I 
should  save  for  seed,  the  other  1  should  have  ground,  he  asked  mo 
what  it  was  jfood  for  then,  1  told  him  it  would  make  very  good 
pudings  I  was  sure  as  1  had  tasted  of  it  in  that  way,  and  1  had  been 
told  it  would  make  Bread,  but  I  did  not  know  that,  but  1  should  try 
it  and  then  I  should  know.  He  said  his  opinion  was  otherwise.— 
He  then  asked  me  if  there  was  many  that  planted  the  corn  in  thit 
neighbourhood,  I  told  him  a  great  many  in  small  quantity.  Did  it 
ripen  well,  I  told  him  yes,  in  every  instance.  Did  I  think  it  would 
answer  to  plant  a  whole  field.  I  told  him  yes,  under  proper  cultiva- 
tion it  would  pay  better  than  any  thing  else.  He  thought  it  would 
not.  Then  he  asked  me  how  Mrs.  Mason's  Crop  was,  I  told  hira 
very  good.  He  said  he  had  heard  that  this  corn  would  kill  the  pigs 
fed  with  it  by  giving  them  the  murrin,  and  by  making  pudings 
and  bread  witli  it  it  would  give  people  the  yellow  janders.  I 
told  him  that  was  not  very  likely  in  my  opinion.  Then  he  asked  me 
if  I  did  not  know  him,  I  said  no.  He  said  his  name  was  Hunt, 
lie  asked  me  if  1  did  not  know  what  the  people  said  of  him.  I 
told  him  most  people  said  he  had  sold  himself  to  the  Torys,  He 
asked  me  if  I  tkousht  so,  I  told  him  /  did  not  know,  hut  if  he  had 
J  was  sorry  for  it.  1  thought  at  this  time  particularly  every  man 
ought  to  do  his  duty.  He  said  he  hud  not  i}&r  never  would.  I  told 
him  I  did  not  wonder  at  his  speaking  against  the  corn  now  I  knew 
who  he  VJas,  as  I  had  a  letter  by  me  which  he  sent  last  april  saying 
it  would  not  ripen  and  that  it  was  a  fraud j  he  did  not  seem  to  re- 
colect  any  thing  about  it,  1  said  it  appears  that  you  and  Mr.  Cob- 
bett  have  a  quarrel  between  you,  but  the  nature  of  the  Quarrel  I 
do  not  know  neither  do  1  wish  to  know,  but  I  thiuk  you  have  acted 


1st  April,  1832.  205 

very  wrong  in  Speaking  against  the  corn  as  you  have  and  do  now, 
-when  you  see  it  will  ripen  well,  and  1  as  well  as  many  more  in  this 
part  of  the  country  are  sure  it  will  answer  a  good  purpose  and 
prove  to  be  a  great  good.  And  1  said  I  would  not  talk  any  more 
OB  that  subject.  Then  we  began  talking  about  t!»e  Reform.  He 
said  the  Bill  would  do  no  good,  I  told  him  Mr.  Cobbett*s  opinion 
was  it  would  do  much  good,  I  mean  the  first  Bill.  He  said  he  had 
a  quarrel  with  Mr.  Cobbett,  but  nevertheless  he  Esteemed  him 
highly  as  a  publick  man,  I  told  him  if  so  how  wrong  it  Mas  in 
bim  to  try  to  set  the  naition  together  by  the  ears  through  a  per- 
sonal Disspute ;  then  he  asked  about  the  masons^  and  Cook  that  was 
hanged,  and  asked  me  if  I  did  not  recolect  he  made  a  motion  in 
the  house  about  the  men  that  was  transported.  1  told  him  yes. 
He  said  he  had  been  about  to  get  InformaAion  on  that  subject,  and  he 
meant  to  face  the  Attorney  General  again  when  the  parlimeut  met. 
He  said  he  was  going  to  Wallop  and  could  not  stop  longer.  He 
said  he  knew  the  corn  would  ripen,  but  did  not  think  it  would 
come  so  fine  in  this  country.  This  is  all  that  passed  between  us  as 
far  as  I  can  Recolect  now.  This  is  the  substance  of  it  at  any  rate, 
and  I  believe  he  went  away  some  what  Disoppointed,  he  gave  me 
three  Little  papers  somthing  about  his  Speech  at  Leeds,  some  time 
past,  but  1  have  not  had  time  to  Read  it.  1  heard  he  was  at  Whit* 
church  the  day  after  he  was  with  me.  I  think  he  was  with  me  about 
half  an  hour.  1  hope  you  and  your  good  family  are  well,  and  I 
remain^  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

E.  DIDDAMS. 

SECOND    LETTER. 

Sutton  Scotney,  Dec.  13,  1831. 
Sir, — When  I  wrote  last  to  you  1  told  you  all  1  could  recolect 
about  Hunt's  visit  to  me  since  that  time  1  have  thought  the  matter 
over  more  particularly  to  myself,  and  what  1  have  heard  since  fully 
confirms  me  in  the  belief  that  he  is  a  —  and  that  the  object  of  his 
Journey  to  this  part  of  the  country,  and  his  visit  to  me  in  particular 
was  for  no  good ;  before  he  made  himself  known  to  me  he  asked  me 
many  strange  questions.  Such  as  did  I  know  the  Barings,  what  I 
thought  of  them,  what  I  thought  of  the  state  of  people's  minds,  and  if 
they  ware  Quiet,  and  did  I  think  they  would  continue  Quiet,and  many 
such  like  Questions,  but  to  all  of  them  I  gave  no  positive  answer,  or 
made  no  reply,  fori  asure  you  I  received  him  as  I  allways  do  those 
that  are  Strangers,  with  great  caution.  Before  he  made  himselfknown 
to  me  and  was  at  the  door  he  asked  me  if  I  had  any  fire  within,  as 
his  feet  was  very  cold,  I  said  yes,  he  went  in  and  warmed  his  feet, 
and  then  he  asked  me  if  I  had  any  Bacon  in  the  house,  which  I 
thought  was  a  very  Strange  Question.  He  said  he  should  like  some 
fat  Bacon  and  Bread,  at  these  words  1  was  very  much  surprised.  I 
thought  surely  there  is  something  wrong.  1  said  I  had  none  but  a 
piece  of  lean  Bacon  which  was  not  fit  to  be  Brought  out  to  him  nor 
did  1  offer  to  do  it,  though  I  had  a  nice  peice  of  Bacon  in  the  House 


206  Two-PENKY  Trash  ; 

that  we  (lined  oflf  the  day  before  (\%hich  was  Sunday)  with  some  o( 
the  cabbages  that  those  plants  J  had  of  you  prodused.  Aud  iheo  he 
asked  me  how  far  it  was  to  WaJlop,  J  toldibim  about  eleven  miles, 
he  said  he  eould  reach  there  in  time  for  dinner,  and  when  he  found 
he  could  get  no  Bacon  of  me  he  left  directly.  He  never  asked  me 
to  correspoinl  with  him,  only  after  he  was  up  in  his  gigg:,  and  got  ^s 
much  as  ten  yards  from  the  wicket  where  I  was  standing  he  looke4 
round  an  said  good  buy,  I  should  be  glad  to  hear  from  you  at  any 
time.  I  noded  my  head  but  made  no  answer.  I  have  not  wrote  to 
him  nor  had  I  ever  any  intention  to  do  it,  for  as  soon  as  he  was 
gone,  my  wife  and  me  talked  over  the  nature  of  his  visit  and  we 
concluded  between  ourselves  that  there  was  somewhat  of  a  mistery 
in  it,  and  you  must  know  Sir  that  it  is.  not  likely  but  1  have  been 
visited  by  many  persons  that  I  have  had  every  reason  to  believe 
was  — ^,  and  that  is  the  reason  I  receive  all  Strangers  and  allso  many 
other  persons  with  great  caution,  and  I  know  he  cannot  do  n»e  any 
barm  if  it  was  his  intention.  When  1  wrote  to  you  about  the  oora 
I  had  forgot  to  tell  you  that  I  had  sent  a  good  parsel  of  corn  to 
LoNGPARiSH,  to  another  person  (besides  Hunter  and  Froom).  Last 
Sunday  1  heard  from  him,  he  distributed  it  to  several  of  his  neigh- 
bours, he  sent  word  to  me  they  all  of  them  had  excelent  crops,  and 
are  going  to  plant  a  considerable  Quantity  next  year,  and  so  are 
several  about  this  place,  1  believe  there  will  be  some  acres  planted 
in  this  parish  next  year.  Hunt  went  also  to  Longparish  the  day 
after  he  was  wiili  me,  and  tryed  to  persuade  them  tha^  the  corn 
would  give  them  the  Jaundice  and  the  pigs  the  murran,  but  they 
laught  at  him,  but  whether  he  got  any  Bacon  there  or  not  I  do  not 
know  ;  one  more  thing  1  forgot  to  tell  you  in  my  last  letter  about 
the  murrian.  He  said  that  you  killed  a  great  many  pigs  with  the 
corn  at  Barn  elm  farm,  they  all  died  with  the  murrian,  which  I 
said  was  very  strange  if  true,  seeing  you  so  strongly  recommended 
the  use  of  it  in  the  same  way  to  other  people ;  then  he  told  me  a 
good  round  lie  to  finish  with  which  1  thought  not  worth  telling 
you  about  in  my  last  letter,  but  I  will  tell  you  now  Just  to  make 
you  Laugh,  he  asked  me  if  I  thought  the  corn  was  better  than  po^ 
ialoes,  1  said  yes  a  great  deal,  he  said  he  thought  otherwise  and  Mr. 
Cobbett  may  say  what  he  pleased  about  it  but  he  once  dined  with 
Mr.  Cobbett  and  other  Gentelmen  when  there  w'as  all  sorts  of  meat 
and  every  thing  that  was  good.  But  he  saw  Mr.  Cobbett  take  a  great 
Quantity  of  potatoes  on  his  plate  bethought  half  a  gailon,  v/it)si 
some  butter,  and  he  made  his  Dinner  on  that  and  nothing  else,  and 
after  'Dinner  saw  him  Drink  as  much  as  three  Bottles  of  wine.  And 
as  soon  as  he  was  gone  my  Wife  said  if  I  was  in  that  mans  place  I 
would  lie  if  I  did  lie  as  some  one  could  lie  with  me,  for  that  lie  was 
too  bare  faced.  I  will  gt)  to  Longparish  soon  and  get  all  the  parti- 
culars about  his  foolishness.  I  hope  the  R«'form  Bill  that  was  to 
be  brought  forward  munday  evening  will  be  satisfactory  to  the 
country,  for  I  asure  you  we  are  in  a  dreadful  Situation,  the  Fires 
are  Blazing  almost  every  night,  and  on  Sunday  night  last  Cokham 
farm  in  the  parish  of  Barton  Stacey  was  Burnt,  Barns  Ricks 
Stables  and  every  thing  but  the  House  and  a  Rick  or  too  that  stood 


1st  Apkii^  1832.  207 

at  a  Distauce  from  the  farm  yani,  if  you  have  a  paper  that  you 
have  doue  with  and  can  spare  that  ^ivs  the  particulars  of  minis- 
ters plan  of  Reform,  I  should  be  much  oblig'd  if  you  would  send  it 
ine,  as  I  want  to  know  how  it  is  like  to  be  and  so  do  many  of  my 
neighbours  particularly  the  Chopsticks  that  ajets  ho  news  but  what 
they  gets  from  me,  and  we  want  to  know  if  possible  before  Satur- 
day.   I  hope  you  and  your  good  family  are  well. 

And  1  remain,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

ENOS  DIDDAMS. 

Extract  of  a  Letter  from  Mr.  Diddams,  dated  Sutton  Scotney, 

Jan.2\y  1831. 

Respectitig  my  letters  relating  to  Hunt  and  the  Corn,  there  is  no- 
thing in  them  but  what  is  strictly  true,  and  you  are  welcome  to  pub- 
lish them  if  you  think  proper.  Fori  think  Hunt  has  used  me  very  ill, 
for,  since  he  was  with  me,  he  has  sent  me  another  Circular  with  two 
of  his  penny  papers  enclosed.  No.  8  and  No.  9,  where  he  has 
thought  proper  to  publish  a  part  of  our  conversation,  and  some  of 
it  IS  not  Itme  by  a  great  deal.  If  ever  you  should  see  this  paper, 
he  reports  that  I  told  him  my  opinion  was  that  the  Corn  was  too  bad 
to  give  to  pigs  alone  without  something  with  it.  He  was  talking 
about  the  murrain,  and  that  the  Corn  would  give  it  to  pigs,  parti- 
cularly you4ag  ones.  Now  wluit  I  did  say  was  thisy  I  had  been  told 
the  Coru  was  too  Strong,  to  give  to  young  pigs  alone.  And  I  thought 
the  best  way  would  be  to  have  it  ground  and  mix  it  with  some 
pollard,  particularly  for  young  pigs,  and  if  you  should  publish  my 
letters,  1  wish  you  to  put  this  mistatemcnt  with  it,  for  1  do  not 
like  his  conduct  towards  me,  and  I  should  like  for  him  to  know  it, 
and  to  know  that  I  want  no  more  of  his  letters,  nor  any  ihino-  to 
do  with  him,  as  he  has  not  confined  bimsellto  truth  respecting  me« 

Now  observe,  the  words  put  in  italicjcs  are  so  put  by  me^ 
ia  order  to  point  them  out  to  you  as  worthy  of  particular 
notice ;  and  J  hare  left  out  two  words,  which  it  was  not 
necessary  to  insert.  But,  observe,  in  the  extract  from  the 
letter  of  the  21st  January,  the  danger  of  eveu  being  where 
THE  LIAR  is!  Mr.  Diddams  said,  that  he  had  been 
told  that  the  corn  was  too  strong,  if  given  alone,  for  younor 
pigs:  that  is,  too  rick,  or  too  good;  and  this  fellow  pub^ 
li^kes,  that  Mr.  Diddams  said,  that  it  was  too  bad  for 
ye«ng  pigs  !  The  lie  suited  him  for  the  moment ;  it  seemed 
as  a  momentary  gratification  to  his  malignity,  and  that  was 
enough. 

Now,  people  of  Preston,  I  do  not  state  these  things  to 
yon  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  you  from  sending  this 
fellow  to  Parliament  again ;  for  that  I  know  to  be  ini'- 


208  Two-penny  Trash; 

possible.  I  lay  them  before  you,  in  order  to  show  you  what 
3,  false  thing  it  is;  what  a  shameless  LIAR  it  is;  how 
clearly  everybody  sees  this  ;  and  with  what  just  scorn  your 
letter-// anker  is  treated  by  those  chopsticks  of  the  South, 
whom  some  of  you  consider  as  ignorant  people.  *'  The 
people  at  Longparish  laughed  at  himj'  Do  you  not  feel 
a  little  ashamed  at  reading  these  words?  They  laughed  at 
3^our  Cock:  those  *^  ignorant**  clod-thumpers  laughed  at  so 
barefaced  a  LIAR;  and  they  wondered,  I  daresay,  what 
sort  of  people  those  must  have  been  who  could  choose  such 
a  fellow  a  second  time  ! 

But  now  let  us  view  him  as  the  traducer  of  Mr.  Mit- 
chell.    For  years  one  of  his  cA«r^es  against  B  A INES  of 
Leeds  was,  that  he  had  designated  Mr.  Mitchell  to 
have  been  a  government  spy  in  the  days  of  Oliver;  and 
now,  he  himself  calls  Mr.  Mitchell  a  spy.     And  when 
did  he  change?     Up  to  the  month  of  August,    1831,  or 
thereabouts,  Mr.  Mitchell   was,  in  his  letters,  his  '*  dear 
friend  Mitchell;**  he  was  to  him  *' as  the  apple  of  his 
eye  ;'*  and  always  concluded  his  letters  to  him  with  **  may 
God  bless  you  and  your  family  J^    What,  then,  caused  him 
to  see  that  Mr.  Mitchell  had  been  a  spy  ?     Why,  read  Mr. 
Mitchell's  history  oi  the  fnances,  published  in  the  Preston* 
Chronicle  of  the '26th  of  November  last,  and  then  you 
will  know.     You  will  know  that  Mr.  Mitchell  became  a  spy 
precisely  at  the   time  when  the  subscriptions  became  eX' 
hausted,  and  when  he  would  give  or  lend  no  more  money 
out  of  his  own  pocket.     Mr.  Mitchell  has  not  done  his  duty^ 
his  bounden  duty,  either  to  himself  or  to  the  cause  of  reform. 
His  account  of  the  expens.es  of  the  travelling  of  THE 
LIAR;  his  account  of  the  Stamford-street  payments ;  his 
account  of  the  cost  of  the  processions ;  his  story  of  the  ten* 
pound  trip  to  Liverpool;  and,  above  all,  his  account  of  the 
subscription  to  the  Catholic  charity  ball ;  all  these  taken 
together,  and  especially  when  viewed  in  the  same  picture 
with  the  asking  for  bacon  at  Mr.  Diddams*s,  do  indeed 
present  us  with  the  "  beau  ideal  of  a  sturdy  beggar;''  but 
this  is  not  enough.     We  want  from  Mr.  Mitchell's  pen,  not 
reflections,  not  censure,  not  sarcasm;  but  a  dry  and  plain 
statement  of  sums  paid,  to  whom,  and /or  what,  or  under 
what  pretence.     This  is  what  we  want:  the  whole  is,  in 


1st  April,  1832.  209 

this  case,  a  mere  matter  of  money.  Put  down  the  ''  lodg- 
ingSf*'  and  in  short  every  disbursement,  and  to  whom 
paid;  into  whose  hands  paid.  This  is  what  is  wanted ; 
and  it  would  be  more  amusing  than  any  farce  or  novel  that 
ever  was  published.  There  was,  in  consequence  of  the  ap- 
peal of  the  people  of  Preston,  a  good  sum  instantly  raised 
in  the  City,  and  I  had  a  sum  sent  from  Lynn,  But  when 
we  found  the  channel  into  which  it  was  going,  we  held 
our  hands^  aiid  I  ociit  my  money  back  to  Lynn.  We  saw 
how  the  money  luould  go;  and  we  wanted  it  to  go  to  the 
people  of  Preston,  who^  we  soon  discovered,  would  never 
get  a  farthing  of  it. 

However,  to  come,  back  to  the  SPY- LIE.  For  more 
than  ten  years  THE  LIAR  had  called  this  a  false  and  in* 
famous  charge  against  Mr.  Mitchell,  and  now  he  makes 
the  charge  himself.  Mr.  Mitchell  was  put  into  jail  two 
years  by  the  government,  after  the  charge  was  7nade,  No 
new  proof  has  arisen  to  support  the  charge  :  so  that  THE 
LIAR  has  been  calling  Mr.  Mitchell  his  *'  dear  friend" 
and  "  THE  APPLE  OF  HIS  EYE,''  for  years,  while  he  6e- 
lieved  him  to  he  a  government  spy ;  or  he  now,  when  the 
subscriptions  are  exhausted,  calls  him  a  spy,  and  does  not 
believe  him  to  he  one. 

When  at  Leeds,  on  the  4th  of  March  last,  I  put  Mr. 
Mann  to  the  test  upon  this  point.  I  said  to  him,  "  THE 
LIAR  calls  Mitchell  a  spy ;  do  you  believe  that  he  was 
oneT'  Mr.  Mann  answered,  "  Well."  Oh!  no  *'  ivell,'' 
said  I.  Two  years  ago,  when  1  was  here  at  Leeds,  one  of 
your  grounds  of  reproach  against  Baines  was,  that  he  had 
falsely  and  basely  called  Mitchell  a  spy  of  the  govern- 
ment; and  do  you  now  hesitate  upon  the  subject  ?  "  Well,*' 
said  he,  **  ask  Mr.  Johnstone,  of  Manchester.''  **  I  have 
"  asked  him,''  said  I;  *'  that  matter  was  fully  discussed 
"  when  I  was  at  his  house.  At  the  very  utmost  nothing 
"  but  indiscretion  was  ever  brought  home  to  Mitchell ;  and 
"  after  hearing  everything,  Mr.  Thomas  Smith  of  Liver- 
**  pool  was  of  opinion,  that  no  proof  whatever  w^as  everpro- 
"  duced  to  make  out  treachery  in  Mitchell."  But,  added  I, 
*'  the  worst  of  it  is,  that  YOU  could  not  discover  any  proof, 
"  or  presumption,  of  this  sort,  till  it  was  wanted  to  uphold 
**  the  brazen  assertions  of  THE  LIAR;  and  he  could  never 


210  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

'^discover  any  presumption  of  guilt  in  Mitchell,  as  long  as 
'*  the  funds  lasted  !  However,  this  I  know,  that  when  I 
"  was  here  last,  YOU  called  Baines  *  a  black-hearted 
*'  scoundrel'  for  having  called  Mitchell  a  spy ;  you  have 
**  been  upon  the  most  intimate  terms  with  Mitchell  since 
"  that  time ;  and  now,  when  the  Preston  funds  fail,  you 
*'  have,  all  of  a  sudden,  found  out  that  he  was  a  spy;  and, 
"  what  is  very  curious,  YOU  and  THE  LIAR  make  the 
"  discovery  J  use,  at  the  ZCLTTIC  tlTncf* 

With  regard  to  Mr.  Smithson  the  charge  is  just  as 
groundless  and  just  as  malignant.  You  are  aware,  that 
when  Lord  Morpeth  presented  the  'petition  from  Leeds 
for  applying  the  tithes  in  Ireland  to  the  relief  of  the  poor, 
a  base  LIAR  published  in  the  newspapers,  that  the  meet- 
ing at  which  this  petition  was  passed  was  *^  got  up  by  one 
Smithson,  a  man  who  had  roasted  the  Bible. '^  Smith- 
son  contradicted  this  by  petition  to  the  House ;  but  his  pe- 
tition could  not  be  received.  This  was  clearly  an  attempt, 
on  the  part  of  this  MALIGNANT  LIAR,  to  throw  discredit 
on  this  important  petition  ;  and  this  too  in  order  to  favour 
the  notorious  Tory,  Sadler.  When  therefore  I  got 
to  Leeds,  I  was  resolved  to  get  at  the  bottom  and  at  the 
motive  of  this  malignant  lie.  I  asked  Mr.  Mann  (the  de-- 
clared  enemy  of  Smithson)  what  ground  there  was  for  the 
story,  which  seemed  to  me  to  have  been  hatched  up  for  no 
other  purpose  than  that  of  injuring  a  petition  which  every 
good  man  in  the  country  approved  of.  He  did  not  tell  me 
what  ground  -j  but  said  that  he  believed  the  charge  to  be 
true.  When  I  asked  Mr.  Smithson  about  it,  he  treated 
it  as  a  vile  lie,  invented  for  the  occasion*  But  now  finding 
Mann,  whom  I  have  long  known  for  a  very  honest  apd 
punctual  bookseller,  and  Smithson,  who  is  a  joiner,  and 
also  keeps  a  beer-house,  and  whom  I  had  not  known  before, 
but  of  whom  very  worthy  men  gave  a  good  character  ;  find- 
ing these  two  at  daggers  drawn,  and  causing  great  division 
amongst  the  woiking-people,  I  wished  to  come  at  the  bottom 
of  their  quarrel,  in  order  that  I  might  produce  reconciliation 
if  possible.  I  began  by  asking  Mann  what  deadly  offence 
Smithson  had  committed  against  him;  because  I  was  not 
to  be  made  to  believe  that  the  Bible-roasting  was  his  real 
offence.     Mann  told  roe,  that  Smithson  had  accused  him 


1st  April,  1832.  211 

of  having  been  accessory  to  the  death  of  Thistlewood. 
Here  was  something  indeed  to  ground  hostility  upon.  I 
then  saw  Smith  son,  and  besought  him  to  retract  the 
charge,  which  appeared  to  me  to  be  absurd.  Smith  son 
said,  that  he  never  made  any  5i:ch  charge ;  but  that  seven 
l)0U7ids  and  some  odd  shillings  had  been  collected  by  some 
persons  (whom  he  named)  to  send  Mann  to  London,  ear?y 
in  1820,  or  late  in  1819,  to  caution  Thistlewood  against 
placing  any  reliance  on  support  from  the  country,  and  to 
beseech  him  not  to  attempt  any  tiling  desperate  or  unlaw*  , 
ful;  that  Mann  took  the  money  ^nd.  never  returned  it; 
that  he  never  went  near  Thistleiuood  to  caution  him  ;  and 
that,  if  he  had  done  it,  that  unfortunate  man  might  have 
been  restrained  from  making  the  attempt  that  cost  him  his 
life.  When  I  asked  Mann  for  his  answer  to  this,  he  ac- 
knowledged that  he  took  the  money ;  that  he  had  neven 
returned  the  money  ;  said  that  he  went  to  London  for  the 
purpose  of  executing  his  mission  ;  but  that  he  was  advised 
nat  to  go  near  Thistlewood ;  and  that  he  did  not  go  near 
him.  When  I  asked  him  WHO  it  was  that  advised  him 
thus,  he  said  '*  Major  Cartwright  for  one."  I  reminded 
him,  thht  I  was  in  London  at  that  time;  thj^lk'^aently 
saw  him  there  and  frequently  conversed  with  him ;  and  yet, 
that  he  nerer  even  mentioned  tom^  this  niission  tn  Thistle* 
wood,  much  less  did  he  ask  my  advice,  and  that  if  he  had 
I  most  assuredly  should  have  advised  him  to  execute  his 
mission  faithfully. 

Now,  men  of  Preston,  honest  and  sincere  as  I  believe 
you,  I  pray  you  to  attend  to  what  1  am  now  going  to  say. 
Major  Cartwright  is  dead;  and  dead  men  are  not 
witnesses.  Mann  did  not  ask  MY  advice  in  this  case ; 
and  /  a/Ti  alive.  What  other  live  man's  advice  he  asked 
I  know  not ;  but  he  named  nobody  but  the  dead  Major. 
But  there  was  another  man,  with  whom  he  was  almost 
constantly,  while  in  London  at  that  time  ;  and  that  was 
Hunt.  Now  Mann  did  not  tell  me  that  this  was  one  of 
hisr  advisers  in  the  case  aforesaid  ;  and  I  do  not  know  that 
he  was  ;  but  take  the  following  undeniable  facts,  and  then 
judge  for  yourselves.  1.  That  when  Mann  was  in  London, 
at  that  time,  he  was  almost  constantly  with  Hunt. 
2.  That  Thistlewood  had  called    Hunt  a  coward  for   his 


212  Two-penny  Trash; 

• 
conduct  at  Manchester  in  the  preceding  month  of  August. 

3,  That,  when  Thistlewood  and  his  associates  were  taken 
in  Cato-street,  Hunt  published  in  the  newspapers,  that  they 
meaned  to  assassinate  hvn  and  me  as  weii  as  the  ministers. 

4.  That  I  published  a  paragraph  expressing  jny  disbelief m 
this,  as  far  as  related  to  myself.  5.  That,  while  Thistle- 
Vood  and  the  others  were  waiting  their  trial,  Hunt  said,  that, 
if  nobody  elsecould  be  found  to  hanrj  Thistlewood,  he  would 

do  it  with  his   own  hands;  *^aye,    and  that  b his  wife 

too,  for  she  hates  me  as  much  as  he  does/' 

You  will  observe,  that  all  these  i.\ct&  can  be  proved  upon 
oath  ;  and  you,  like  just  and  sensible  and  humane  men,  w^ill 
consider  them  well ;  and  the  good  and  honest  and  deceived 
Radicals  at  Leeds  ought  to  consider  them  well.  They 
ought  to  see  the  true  object  of  Mann's  recent  mission  to 
Huxr  at  Manchester.  They  ought  to  see  that  the  Bible- 
roasting  lie  is  the  offspring  of  this  old  accusation,  now  re- 
vived by  the  provocation  given  by  Mann,  in  his  attempt  to 
cram  the  great  CORN  LIAR  and  FOOL  down  the  throats 
of  the  people  of  Leeds  and  SADLER  along  with  him  !  But 
now  for  the  proof  of  this  lie. 

You  will  bear  in  mind,  that  a  petition  was  agreed  upon  at 
Leeds,  founded  on  a  motion  of  Mr.  Joshua  Bower;  that 
Slri'lTHSON  having  supported  that  motion,  Mann  opposed 
it,  though  the  very  best  petition  ever  presented  in  our  day ; 
that  when  the  petition  came  before  the  House,  a  BASE 
LIAR  published,  in  his  newspaper  the  next  day,  that  the 
Leeds  meeting  had  been  got  up  by  one  Smithson,  who 
had  roasted  the  Bible ;  thereby  saying,  in  fact,  that  those 
who  petitioned  against  tithes  were  INFIDELS.  When 
therefore  I  got  into  Yorkshire,  and  v^dismet  by  Mr.  Mann, 
at  Halifax,  and  afterw^ards  at  Dewsbury,  I  asked  him  what 
foundation  there  w^as  for  this  charge  against  Smithson, 
which  had  been  attempted  to  be  turned  to  so  mischievous  an 
account.  He  said,  that  he  believed  the  charge  to  be  true ; 
but  he  did  not  mention  any  p?'ooy* that  he  had.  Smithson 
treated  the  charge  as  a  base  calumny,  invented  for  the  pur- 
pose of  throwing  discredit  on  the  meeting  and  on  the  peti- 
tion.  Both  Mann  and  Smithson  sold  tickets  for  the  Zee* 
tures,  and  I  had  to  see  them  both  frequently.  On  Friday, 
the  24th   February,  my  servant,  who  had  been  at  Mann's 


1st  April,  1832.  21.3 

shop  for  something,  brought  me  word,  '^that  he  had  seen 
an  old  man  there,  who  had  a  Bible  in  a  handkerchief,  and 
who  said  that  "  he  saw  Smithson  roast  the  Bible,  and  that 
"he  wanted,  the  Saturday  before^  to  roast  that  which  he 
"had  in  his  handkerchief;  that,  upon  hearing  this  relation, 
"  Mr.  Mann  CRIED  ;  that  the  old  man  said  he  would 
**  make  an  affidavit  of  it ;  and  that  Mann  took  him  away 
^'  to  make  the  affidavit,^'  Soon  after  hearing  this  wonder- 
ful story,  the  old  man  came  to  see  me,  having  a  large  thing, 
in  form  of  a  Book,  in  a  handkerchief.  My  servant  I  kept 
in  the  room  all  the  time  he  was  there.  He  said  nothing 
about  Bible-roasting ;  but,  told  me,  that  he  was  about 
ninety  years  old,  that  he  lived  eight  miles  off,  that  his 
name  was  Walker,  and  that  a  kind  friend  always  gave 
him  a  bed  when  he  came  to  Leeds,  as  he  was  not  able  to 
walk  back  the  same  day,  and  that  he  had  come  in  to  hear 
the  Lecture,  and  to  see  a  man  whose  writings  he  had  so  long 
admired,  and  that,  as  the  Lecture  was  put  oif  till  Monday, 
he  had  come  to  see  me  at  the  Inn. 

The  old  man  had  been  gone  about  an  hour,  perhaps,  when 
Smithson  came  to  settle  something  about  the  Lecture,  and 
he  expressed  his  sorrow  for  the  postponement,  because  there 
was  an  old  friend  of  his  ninety  years  of  age  who  had  come 
in  on  purpose  to  hear  it,  and  that  he  (Smithson)  always 
gave  the  poor  old  fellow  a  bed  when  he  came  to  Leeds. 
I  asked  him  the  old  man's  name  ;  he  said  it  was  Walker  ! 
It  would  have  been  to  partake  in  the  perfidy,  not  to  tell 
Smithson  what  this  man  had  said  at  Mann's,  and  about  the 
affi,davit.  He  was  horror-stricken ;  and  well  he  might. 
In  about  an  hour  or  so  he  returned  to  the  Inn  in  great  haste, 
and  begged  that  my  serA^ant  might  go  to  his  house  with  him. 
There  this  old  man,  in  the  presence  of  my  servant,  said  that 
the  Bible-roastitig  took  place  in  1795,  when  Smithson  wag 
a  child  in  petticoats,  and  that,  as  to  the  last  Saturday's  af- 
fair, it  was  a  mere  joke  in  derision  of  the  lie  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  In  short,  the  old  man  here  negatived  all  that  he 
had  said  at  Mann's  shop,  and  that  had  made  Mr.  Mann 
CRY !  I  told  Mr.  Mann  how  false  this  old  Walker  was,  and 
besought  him  to  confess  his  error.  He  said  he  had  other 
witnesses.  But  honest  men  of  Leeds,  if  he  have  other  wit- 
nesses, ivhy  did  he  not  name  them  to  me,  and  why,  O  why ! 


^ 


^14  Two-PE^NY  Tra«h  ; 

did  he  go  away  with  this  old  Walker  to  get  HIS  AFFIDA- 
VIT !  And  why,  O  why!  was  NOT  that  affidavit  made  ! 
Why,  when  the  story  came  hefore  persons  not  bereft  of  tlieir 
senses  by  feelings  of  deadly  enmity,  it  was  seen  that  it  was 
false,  and  that  the  attempt  to  uphold  it  by  such  means  must 
co^^r  all  the  parties  with  everlasting  infamy. 

Now,  good  people  of  Preston  and  '*  Radical  Union*' 
men  of  Leeds,  it  is  in  the  nature  of  honesty  and  sincerity 
not  to  be  suspicious ;  not  to  be  suspicious  is  to  be  exposed 
to  deception  by  cunning  knaves  and  bold  impostors.  You 
have  been  deceived  in  consequence  of  your  own  frankness 
and  sincerity  ;  any  errors  that  you  may  have  committed  in 
consequence  of  that  deception  are  excusable ;  but  when  you 
are  undeceived,  then  to  persevere  in  error  is  not  excusable. 
I  can  neither  gain  by  the  correction  of  your  errors,  nor  lose 
by  your  perseverance  in  them.  In  addressing  you  upon 
this  occasion,  I  have  no  motive  other  than  that  of  wishing 
you  to  act  a  part  tending  to  the  good  of  the  country,  and  to 
your  own  well-being;  and  in  the  hope  that  you  will  act  that 
part,  1  remain  your  obliged  and  faithful  friend,  and  most 
obedient  servant, 

WM.  COBBETT. 


TO  COUNTRY  PEOPLE. 

Let  nobody  persuade  you  to  quit  England  to  go  to  COLO» 
NIES.  You  are  sure,  either  to  die  speedily  or  to  lead  most 
degraded  and  miserable  lives.  If  you  can  get  to  live  under 
the  cheap  government  of  the  United  States,  it  may  be 
'worth  the  voyage ;  but  if  you  go  to  Colonies,  misery  for  life 
is  your  lot.  However,  there  is  this  to  be  said  ;  that  those 
who  go  to  these  Colonies  are  such  stupid  and  base  creatures 
as  not  to  be  fit  to  be  treated  in  any  way  other  than  as  cattle. 
But  you,  good  bat-men  of  Kent  and  Sussex,  stay  you  at 
home,  and  keep  the  invaders  away ;  or,  if  you  do  move, 
move  only  to  the  United  States. 

WM.  COBBETT. 


I 


JsT  April,  1832;  215 

SEEDS 

FOR  SALE  AT  MR.  COBBETT'S  SHOP,  No.  11,  BOLT- 
COURT,  FLEET-STREET. 

LOCUST  SEEIX 

Very  fine  and  fresh,  at  f>*.  a  pound.  For  instructions  relative  to 
sowing  of  these  seeds,  for  rearing  the  plants,  for  making  plan- 
tations of  ihem,  for  preparing  the  land  to  receive  them,  for  the 
after  cultivations,  for  the  pruning,  and  for  the  applicatioaor  the 
timber;  for  all  these  see  my  **  WOODLANDS;"  or  Treatise 
ON  Timber  Trees  and  Underwood.    8vo.  145. 

SWEDISH  TURNIP  SEED, 

Any  quantity  under  lOlbs.,  10«?.  a- pound  ;  and  any  quantity 
above  lOlbs.  and  under  501bs.,  9id.  a  pound;  any  quantity  above 
SOlbs.,  9</.  a  pound  ;  above  lOOlbs.,  S^d,  A  parcel  of  seed  may  he 
sent  to  any  part  of  the  kingdom  ;  I  will  find  proper  bags,  will  send  it 
to  any  coach  or  van  or  wagon,  and  have  it  booked  at  ray  expense  ; 
but  the  money  must  be  paid  at  my  shop  before  the  seed  be  sent  away  ; 
in  consideration  of  which  I  have  made  due  allowance  in  the  price. 
If  the  quantity  be  small,  any  friend  can  call  and  get  it  for  a  friend 
in  the  country  ;  if  the  quantity  be  large,  it  may  be  sent  by  me. 
The  plants  were  raised  from  seed  given  me  by  Mr.  Peppercorn 
(of  Southwell,  Bedfordshire),  in  1823.  He  gave  it  me  as  the  finest 
sort  that  he  had  ever  seen.  1  raised  some  plants  (for  use)  in  my 
garden  every  year;  but,  at  Barn-Elm  I  raised  a  whole  field  of  it, 
and  had  320  bushels  of  seed  upon  13  acres  of  land.  I  pledge  ray 
word,  that  there  was  not  one  single  turnip  in  the  whole  field  (which 
bore  seed)  not  of  the  true  kind.  There  was  hut  one  of  a  suspicious 
look,  and  that  one  1  pulled  up  and  threw  away.  So  that  I  war- 
rant this  seed  as  being  perfectly  true,  and  as  having  proceeJed 
from  plants  with  small  necks  and  greens,  and  with  that  reddish 
tinge  round  the  collar  which  is  the  sure  sign  of  the  best  sort. 

MANGEL-WURZEL  SEED. 

Any  quantity  under  lOlbs.,  7^d»  a  pound ;  any  quantity  above 
lOlbs.  and  under  501bs.,  7d,  a  pound;  any  quantity  above  50lbs., 
6§rf.  a  pound  ;  any  quantity  above  lOOlbs.,  6d.  a  pound.  The  sell- 
ing at  the  same  place  as  above ;  the  payment  in  the  same  manner. 
This  seed  was  also  grown  at  Barn-Elm  farm  the  summer  before 
the  last.  It  is  a  seed  which  is  just  as  good  at  ten  years  old  as  at 
one. — The  plants  were  raised  in  seed-beds  in  1828;  they  were  se- 
lected, and  those  of  the  deepest  red  planted  out  in  a  field  of  13 
acres,  which  was  admired  by  all  who  saw  it,  as  a  most  even,  true, 
and  beautiful  field  of  the  kind.  The  crop  was  very  large,  and  out 
of  it  were  again  selected  the  plants  from  which  my  present  stock  of 
seed  was  growed^  though,  indeed,  there  was  little  room  for  selec- 
tion, where  «I1  were  so  good  and  true.    I  got  my  seed  from  Mr, 


216  COBBETT-CORN    FloUR. 

Pym,  of  Rei»ate,  who  raised  it  from  plants  proceeding  from  seed 
that  I  had  given  him,  which  seed  I  had  raised  at  Worth,  in  Sussex, 
and,  all  the  way  through,  the  greatest  care  had  been  taken  to  raise 
seed  from  no  plant  of  a  dubious  character.  This  seed,  therefore,  I 
warrant  as  the  very  best  of  the  kind.  A  score  or  two  of  persoD6« 
who  sowed  of  this  seedlast  year,  have  given  me  an  account  of  the 
large  crops  they  have  had  from  it,  and  have  all  borne  testimony  to 
its  being  the  truest  seed  they  ever  saw  of  the  kind.  I  sell  these 
seeds  much  cheaper  than  true  seed,  of  the  same  sorts,  can  be  got  at 
any  other  place  ;  but  I  have  a  right  to  do  this,  and  I  choose  to 
exerci&e  my  right.  My  seeds  are  kept  with  great  care  in  a  proper 
place ;  and  I  not  only  warrant  the  sorty  but  also  that  every  seed 
grow,  if  properly  put  into  the  ground. 

USES  OF  COBBETT-CORN  FLOUR. 

We  use  the  corn-flour  in  my  family,  first,  as  breads  two-tbirds 
wheaten  and  one-third  corn-flour;  second,  in  battel' puddings 
baked,  a  poujad  of  flour,  a  quart  of  water,  two  eggs,  though  these 
last  are  not  necessary;  third,  iu plum-puddings ,  a  pound  of  flour, 
a  pint  of  water,  half  a  pound  of  suet,  the  V^i^^s  and  no  eggs  ; 
FOURTH,  in  plain  suet-puddings,  and  the  same  way,  omitting  the 
plums  ;  FIFTH,  in  little  round  dmnplings ,  with  suet  or  without,  and 
though  they  are  apt  to  break,  they  are  very  good  in  this  way ;  io 
broth,  to  thicken  it,  for  which  use  it  is  beyond  all  measure  better 
than  wheateu-fiour. 

I  sell  the  corn  according  to  the  following  table  :— 
If  planted  in  rows  3  feet  apart,  and  the  plants  8  inches  in  the  row, 

PRICE. 

1  Ear  will  plant  nearly  TWO  RODS £0     0    3J 

1   Bunch  will  plant  more  than  SEVEN  RODS  ......... .     0     10 

6  Bunches  will  plant  more  than  40  rods,  or  a  quarter 

of  an  acre • 0    5     6 

12  Bunches  will  plant  more  than  80  rods,  or  half  an  acre     0  10     6 
25  Bunches  will  plant  more  than  100  rods,  or  an  acre     10     0 


Printed  bj  Wm.  Cobbett,  Johnsoii*s-coiirt,Fleet-8ti'eet. 


/' 


No.  10.  Vol.  II. 


COBBETTS 

TWO-PENNY   TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  May,  1832.     . 


Published  monthly ,  sold  at  \2s,  a  hundred,  and  for  300,  tahen  at 

once,  lis. 


TO   THE 

WORKING  PEOPLE  OF  ENGLAND 

ON    THE 

EMIGRATION    THAT    IS    NOW    GOING    ON. 


Bolt  Courty  Fleet  Street,  London,  \st  May,  1832. 
My  Friends, 

The  government  is  at  work  to  get  people  tp  emigrate^ 
that  is  to  say,  to  get  people  to  go  away  out  of  the  country, 
I  shall,  by  and  by,  show  the  folly  of  this^  and,  when  I  call 
it  folly,  I  give  it  the  very  mildest  name.  But  there  are 
certain  persons,  whose  interest  it  is  to  get  away  out  of 
this  country ;  and  to  them  it  is  necessary  to  be  informed 
what  country  they  ought  to  go  to;  for,  assuredly,  none 
but  idiots  and  mad  people  would  change  countries  in 
order  to  be  worse  off  than  they  were  before  the  change. 
All  the  tax-eaters,  of  every  description,  wish  to  get  people 
to  go  to  English  Colonies.  They  are  afraid  of  their  going 
to  the  United  States  3  because,  if  they  go  there,  they 
not  only  carry  their  property  and  their  talents  and  labour 
to  augment  the  powers  of  freedom  5  but,  they  send  home 
accounts  of  the  blessings,  which  people  enjoy  under  a  cheap 
government,  under  a  government  chosen  by  the  people, 
and  which  government  dares  not  even  talk  about  pensions, 

London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street, 

aud  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 


218  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

sinecures^  grants,  retired-allowances,  dead- v: eights,  mili» 
tary  asendencieSy  and  military  and  naval  half  pay  to  par* 
sons!  Those  who  live  on  the  taxes  and  the  monopolies 
here,  do  not  care  a  curse  what  becomes  of  the  people, 
•whom  they  get  to  go  away,  so  that  they  do  not  go  to 
send  home  accounts  of  the  blessings  of  cheap  government. 
But,  it  is  mv  affair  to  make  the  triith  known  relative  to 
this  matter  ;  and,  this  I  shall  do  by  first  taking  an  extract 
from  my  Emigrant's  Guide,  and  then,  by  offering  my 
advice  on  other  matters,  to  the  Working  People  of  Eng- 
land. 

-^  "  There  is  no  other  country,  except  English  colonies,  in 
which  the  English  language  is  spoken,  and  in  which  the 
habits  and  manners  are  the  same.  This  is  one  great  thing; 
but  there  is  no  other  country  in  which  there  is  a  super- 
abundance of  good  lands,  and  in  which  an  increase  of  the 
population  nmst  necessarily  be  an  advantage  to  the  country. 
There  is  no  other  country  where  there  is  any  room  for 
numerous  strangers  j  and,  besides  all  these,  there  is  no 
other  country  where  the  people  have  to  pay  so  small  a 
portion  of  taxes,  aad  where  kind  and  generous  neigtibours 
are  to  be  found  in  abundance.  To  all  these  advantages 
add  that  of  perfect  civil  and  political  liberty ;  and  that,  as 
to  religion,  the  law  knows  nothing  at  all  about  it. 

^'  In  English  colonies  the  English  language  is  spoken  5 
and,  as  the  support  of  the  governments  there  comes  out 
of  the  pockets  of  the  people  of  England,  there  are  few 
taxes  in  those  colonies^  though  I  perceive  that  they  have 
already  an  excise  even  at  Botany  Bay,  But,  in  the  Englisk 
colonies,  there  is  a  worse  species  of  government  than  there 
is  heie^  greater  state  of  dependenc>e,  and  less  protection 
from  the  law.  In  the  year  1826,  some  persons,  displeased 
with  the  freedom  of  opinion  exercised  by  a  printer  in 
Upper  Canada,  did  not  prosecute  him^  hut  went  by  fore* 
and  demolished  his  press,  and  flung  his  types  into  thelakci 
In  fact,  there  is  very  little  money  in  those  colonies  (I  am 
jspeakingof  those  that  can  be  considered  places  to  emigrate 
toy,  except  that  which  passes  through  the  hands  of  the 
government.  There  are  no  persons  of  consideralde  pro- 
perty i  ^carc^y  one  worthy  of  the  name  of  farmer  5  a»d 
no  man  in  those  colonies  ever  thinks  of  any  degree  of 


1st  May,  1832.  219 

peace  or  safety,  which  he  is  not  to  derive  from  persons 
in  power. 

*'  As  to  New  South  Wales,  as  it  is  called,  and  Van 
Diem  en's  Land,  the  distance,  in  the  first  place,  makes 
the  voyage  a  terrible  undertaking.  When  arrived,  you 
depend  on  the  public  authorities  for  a  grant  of  land.  If 
you  have  money  to  purchase  pieces  of  ground  already 
cleared  and  cultivated,  your  servants  are  convicts,  and 
you  are  at  the  joint  mercy  of  them  and  the  murdering 
natives.  Even  for  the  service  of  the  convicts,  your  sole 
dependence  is  on  the  pleasure  of  the  public  authorities  j 
and,  in  short,  you  are  infinitely  more  def>endent  than  any 
rack-renter  under  the  most  greedy  and  tyrannical  Borough-^ 
monger  in  England.  If  you  find  yourself  miserable,  and 
wish  to  return,  preferring  the  wretched  state  that  you 
have  left  to  that  which  you  find,  your  means  of  return  are 
gone,  and  you  have  to  undergo  another  voyage  of  seven 
or  eight  months,  and  to  return  to  England  a  dejected  and 
broken-hearted  beggar. 

''  The  English  colonies  in  North  America  consist  of 
Lower  and  Upper  Canada,  New  Brunswick,  Nova 
Scotia,  Newfoundland,  and  Prince  Edward's  Island. 
These  form  an  immense  extent  of  country  j  but  with  the 
exception  of  a  small  part  of  Canada,  and  here  and  there 
a  little  strip  of  land  in  New  Brunswick,  which  have 
been  pre-occupied,  the  whole  is  wretchedly  poor:  heaps 
of  rocks  covered  chiefly  with  fir-trees.  These  countries 
are  the  offal  of  North  America 5  they  are  the  head,  the 
shins,  the  shanks,  and  hoofs,  of  that  part  of  the  world  j 
while  the  United  States  are  their  sirloins,  the  well- 
covered  and  well-lined  ribs,  and  the  suet.  People  who 
know  nothing  of  the  matter  frequently  observe,  that  the 
United  States  will  ^ake  our  American  colonies  one  of 
these  days.  This  would  be  to  act  the  wise  part  of  a  thief, 
who  should  come  and  steal  a  stone  for  the  pleasure  of 
carrying  it  about.  These  miserable  colonies,  the  whole 
of  which  do  not  contain,  army,  blacks,  and  all,  a  popula- 
tion equal  to  that  of  the  single  state  of  New  York,  are 
fed-,  with  the  exception  of  Canada,  chiefly  by  food  brought 
from  the  United  States.  Flour,  beef,  pork,  and  even  fresh 
meat)  are  brought  into  these  countries  from  the  United 

l2 


220  Two-rKKNY  Trash  ; 

States  :  even  green  peas  and  many  other  vegetables  are 
carried  from  the  United  States  to  regale  the  petty  sove- 
reigns ^vho  strut  in  that  country,  and  are  maintained  by 
taxes  raised  in  England.  England  has  possessed  those 
countries  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  except  Canada, 
and  has  possessed  that  for  pretty  nearly  a  century  j  she 
has  squandered  hundreds  of  millions  upon  them ;  and  if 
she  were  to  withdraw  the  supplies  of  money  which  she 
now  sends  thitker,  the  whole  of  them,  with  the  exception 
of  some  parts  of  Canada,  would  be  totally  abandoned  in 
less  than  a  year,  except  that  some  of  the  points  near  the 
sea  would  be,  as  they  formerly  were,  resorted  to  by  fisher- 
men in  the  fishing-season.  These  are  no  countries  to  go 
to  :  a  small  part  of  Canada  might  become  passable ;  but 
even  there,  the  government  and  the  state  of  dependence 
are  such,  that  no  sensible  man  will  hesitate  for  a  moment 
between  that  country  and  the  United  States,  where  land 
is  equally  abundant,  where  the  products  are  fine  and  of 
infinite  variety,  and  where,  with  a  moderate  portion  of 
labour  and  care,  every  man  may  do  well.  In  short,  the 
choice  lies  between  the  country  which  has  to  send  for 
green  peas  to  another  country,  and  the  country  in  which 
the  green  peas  grow  :  I  am  for  the  latter,  and  so  I  think 
will  be  every  man  who  has  only  a  moderate  portion  of 
very  common  sense. 

'*!  have,  in  my  'Year's  Residence  in  America,'  given 
an  account  of  the  prices  of  land,  of  labour,  of  food,^of 
clothing,  liouse  rent,  and  tlie  like.  I  shall  speak  of  all 
these  by-and-by ;  but  they  will  be  found  to  be  mentioned 
incidentally  in  certain  original  letters  from  English  emi- 
grants in  America  to  their  friends  in  England  5  and  here 
also  will  be  found  a  striking  instance  of  the  worthlessness 
of  the  English  colonies  compared  with  the  United  States. 
I  shall  here  insert  these  letters,  first  giving  an  account  of 
the  source  from  which  I  have  obtained  them,  and  what 
led  me  to  seek  for  that  source.  The  reader  is  to  be  in- 
formed, then,  that,  since  the  publitation  of  my  **  Year's 
Residence,"  several  parishes  in  the  East  of  Sussex  have 
got  rid,  as  they  call  it,  of  many  families,  that  were  a  great 
burden  to  them,  or  likely  to  be  so,  by  shipping  them  off, 
at  the  parish  expense,  to  the  United  States  of  America  ; 


1st  May,  1832.  221 

and  the  letters  in  question  havinir  been  received  by  their 
relations  in  Sussex,  a  gentlcmiin  of  the  name  of  Benja- 
min Smith  published  a  p:^rt  of  them  for  the  information 
of  others.  I  did  not  know  Mr.  Smiiii,  and  therefore  I 
thought  it  necessary  to  ^-^  to  the  parties  themselves^  and 
obtain  the  originals.  I  did  this,  and  the  originals  are  now 
in  my  hands.  I  have  found  Mr.  S.\HTn*s  publication  to  be 
perfectly  correct,  the  orthography  only  being  mended, 
and  a  little  pointing  supplied  •  and,  therefore,  I  avail 
myself  of  his  publication,  in  the  repubhshing  of  the  letters, 
which  form  the  most  interesting  collection  of  documents 
that  ever  passed  under  my  perusal.  With  these  letters 
before  him,  and  with  no  possible  doubt  as  to  their  authen- 
ticity, every  man  will  be  able  to  judge  of,  every  man 
will  know  to  a  certainty,  the  exact  state  of  things  in  the- 
United  States  ;  especially  as  far  as  regards  the  titness  of 
that  country  as  one  to  emigrate  to. 

"  I  shall  NUMBER  the  letters  for  the  ])urpose  of  more 
easy  reference  when  I  come  afterwards  to  speak  of  the 
contents.  The  parties  writing  the  letters,  are  John 
Watson,  who  went  from  the  parish  of  Sedlescomb  near 
Battle  ;  from  Stephen  Watson,  his  brother,  who  went 
from  the  same  place  -,  from  Mary  Jane  Watson,  a 
daughter  of  Stephen  Watson 3  from  John  Parks,  who 
went  f/om  Eavhurst  near  Northiam  5  from  John  Vkness, 
who  went  from  Mountfield  near  Battle  j  froui  William 
Davis,  who  went  from  Robertsb ridge  ;  from  Mary 
Vexess,  who  went  from  Mountfield  ;  from  John 
Thorpe,  who  went  from  Sedlescomb  ;  from  John 
Harden,  who  went  from  Robertsbridce,  and  from 
Thoimas  Boots,  who  went  from  Robertsbridge.  To  these 
1  shall  add  two  letters  since  received  by  a  gentleman  at 
Rye,  and  I  suppress  not  one  single  word  of  them.  The 
oriijinals  will  be  deposited  at  Fleet  Street,  for  one  week 
after  ihe  publication  of  this  book  ;  and,  when  that  week 
is  passed,  I  shall  return  them  to  the  parties  from  whom  I 
have  received  them.  I  shall  lodge  them  at  Fleet  Street, 
for  the  purpose  of  being  inspected  by  any  gentleman  who 
may  have  the  curiosity  to.  do  it ;  and  I  do  it  also  to  the 
honour  of  the  parties  who  have  written  the  letters.  We 
read  the   other  day   (Morning  Chronicle  of  the  ^4th  of 


222  Two-penny  Trash; 

June)  of  the  execution  of  nine  culprits  at  once,  in  the 
iinppy  colony  of  New  South  Wales  ;  and  read  in  the  same 
paper  that  the  governor  had,  by  proclamation^  just  in- 
creased the  duties  on  tobacco  and  spirits,  while,  at  the 
same  time,  part  of  the  country  was  in  a  state  of  great 
alarm,  on  account  of  the  existence  of  a  ''^formidable  body 
**  of  bush-rangers  mounted  on  horseback,  and  well 
"  armed."  If  any  man,  not  actually  tired  of  his  life,  can 
prefer  emigrating  to  a  country  like  this  to  emigrating  to 
the  United  States,  he  is  wholly  unworthy  of  my  atten- 
tion. I  have  pointed  out  certain  passages  of  the  letters 
by  italics,  to  which  1  request  the  reader's  particulat 
attention. 

'^  I  begin  with  the  letters  from  John  Watson  to  his 
father  Stephen  Watson  of  Sedlescomb.  This  John 
Watson,  it  will  be  perceived,  was  carried  to  our  sweet 
colony  of  New  Brunswick  ;  but  he  soon  found  that  he 
could  not  live  there  5  and  it  will  be  seen  with  what  won- 
drous toil  and  perseverance  he  removed  himself,  his  wife, 
and  his  children,  first  into  Lower  Canada,  then  into 
Upper  Canada,  and  then  into  the  United  States.  Let 
this  man's  progress  be  observed  :  see  the  English  pauper 
become  a  good  solid  landowner  in  America,  in  the  course 
of  only  five  years  3  and  then  come  to  your  decision.  You 
will  remark,  that  in  the  very  first  letter,  John  Watson 
tells  his  father,  that  he  was  discouraged  from  going  to  the 
United  States  ;  and  that  many  had  come  from  the 
States  to  New  Brunswick  !  These  lies  had  been  stuffed 
into  his  head,  as  into  the  heads  of  thousands  of  others; 
but  they  all,  if  they  be  able,  soon  quit  the  miserable  colo- 
nies, and  eret  to  the  United  States.  I  take  the  follow- 
ing  extract  from  a  newspaper,  called  the  Enquirer,  pub* 
lished  at  New  York,  in  the  month  of  June,  182/.  *  In 
'  one  canal-boat  were  eighty  settlers,  coming  into  the 

*  United  States   from    Canada.      King    George  pays 
their  passage^  and  gives  them  a  trifle  for  pocket-money  ; 

'  and  the  moment  they  land  at  Quebec,  without  waiting  to 

*  wash  a  shirt,  all  the  single  able  men  cut  and  run  for  the 
'  United  States  ;  and  we  have  all  the  benefit  of  the 
'  emigration.'  This  Editor  is  mistaken  :  King  George 
does  not  pay  them  for  their  passage,  nor  give  them  the 


1st  May,  1832.  iU 

pocket-money;  for  King   George  pays  no  taxes.     Thus, 

then,  the  United  States  send  food  for  the  colonies,  for 

which  we  pay  ;  we  pay  for  sending  out  mouths  to  eat  it  j 

and  the   moutlis   which  have  arms  and  legs  attached  to 

them,  go  to  swallow  green  peas  in  the  place  where  they 

are  raised. 

Na  1. 

Queensliury,  IV^v  Bi-unswick,* 
Oct.  15,  1810. 

Dear  Father, — I  arrived  in  St.  John  the  16'th  day  of  June,  after 
a  disagreeable  passage.  We  were  struck  with  lightning  in  a 
storm,  in  which  we  lost  one  of  our  sailors.  When  1  came  into  the 
above  place  I  saw  no  prospect  of  doing  anything  there,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  Fredericton,  and  had  many  proposals  made  me  there, 
but  did  not  accept  them.  I  am  now  situated  120  miles  up  the  river 
St.  John.  The  gentleman  in  whose  employ  I  atn,  has  built  me  a 
house  in  which  I  now  live.  I  am  to  have  it,  and  ten  or  twelve 
acres  of  land,  rent  free,  for  three  years.  I  expect  to  be  able  to 
inaintain  my  family  on  this  until  1  get  land  from  Government. 
■Every  ynarried  mem  is  entitled  to  200  acres ^  and  every  single  man 
100.  As  to  saying  positively  what  labourers  get,  I  could  not ;  but 
they  are  paid  according  to  what  they  can  do.  I  got  tive  pounds 
the  first  month  and  my  diet,  1  must  now  tell  you  we  are  not  pes- 
'tered  with  revenue  officers.  We  area  free  people;  free  from  rates 
and  taxes.  The  following  are  the  prices  of  provisions  :  —  Flour, 
2/.  105.  per  barrel,  of  196  pounds  weight;  butter,  from  \s.?>d,to 
\s.  ^d.  per  pound ;  mutton  and  beef,  from  bd.to  6d,  per  pound ;  all 
wearing  apparel  are  as  dear  again  as  in  England.  St.  John  river  is  a 
very  fine  river,  so  that  brigs  of  any  size  can  come  from  St.  John 
to  Fredericton.  A  man  may  catch  as  many  fish  in  an  hour  as  would 
do  for  him  and  his  family  for  a  day.  Along  the  above  river  it  is 
'but  thinly  inhabited,  and  very  few  back  settlements.  There  is 
plenty  of  land,  but  we  want  men  to  work  it.  You  would  really  won- 
der to  see  so  many  thousands  of  acres  of  woody  land  idle,  and  good 
land.  1  had  every  idea  of  going  to  the  States,  but  the  accounts  vjerc 
so  d'lscouraging  that  I  would  not  go  there.  I  assure  you  there  are 
many  coming  from  the  States  here.  Tell  my  brothers  that  I  have 
no  doubt,  after  a  while,  they  would  do  well  here,  but  I  would  not 
advise  them  to  come  now,  for  they  little  know  the  difficulties  they 
would  have  to  undergo  before  they  would  get  settled ;  but  if  they  (or 
1)  was  once  settled  here,  there  would  be  no  fear  but  they  would  do 
well.  Tell  William  Turner  and  Samuel  Turner,  that  if  they  could 
come  here,  and  bring  their  sons,  they  could  be  settled,  provided 
they  had  60/.  ;  or  they  could  get  land  (cleared)  on  the  half  part  of 
what  they  could  raise,  and  oxen  to  plough  it.     Tell  William  Glover 

•  On  ttie  River  St.  John,  in  New  Brunswick,  about  130  liiites 
from  the  Bay  of  FuNDY. 


324  Two-penny  Tuasii; 

that  I  can  get  a  gentleman  to  send  for  him  next  spring",  and  to 
send  me  an  answer  if  he  is  willing  to  come  or  not.  Aiy  wife 
^vould  be  obliged  to  her  brother  if  A|)j>s  would  send  or  take  a  copy 
of  this  letter  to  her  father.  We  are  well,  thank  God,  and  it  is  the 
sincere  wish  of  your  friend,  that  I  may  see  you  all  here,  but  not 
until  1  hear  something  before  you  come. 

And  am,  dear  father, 

Yours  truly  affectionate, 

JOHN  WATSON. 
N.B.  Direct  to  Mr.  John  Hust's,Queensbury  County,  York,  New 
Brunswick,  British  America.     My  wife  would  he  obliged   to  you, 
when  you  writr,  to  send  word  how  all  her  friends  are. 

Mr.  Stephen  l^atscn,  Sedlescomby 
County  of  Sussex^  England. 

No.  "2, 

Seneca,*  County  of  Ontario,  Stale  of  New  York, 
August  13th,  1&20. 

Dear  FATEiE[i,--We  left  Brunswick  on  the  8th  last  March.  The 
severity  of  the  winter  determined  me  to  take  this  step.  We  proceeded 
up  the  river  St.  John  towards  Quebec.  On  our  way  we  encountered 
great  difTicultics,  arising  from  the  cold  anil  ihe  country  being  al- 
most an  entire  wilderness  through  which  we  passed.  Fn>m  Que- 
bec we  proceeded  up  the  river  St.  Laurence  to  Montreal  ;  from 
thence  to  Kingston,  and  up  the  lake  to  Niagara,  where  we  crossed 
over  into  the  United  States,  and  travelled  east  into  the  State  of  New 
York,  100  miles,  to  the  English  settlement  (as  it  is  herp  called), 
Avhere  1  now  live,  but  do  not  intend  to  remain  here  long;  the  land 
is  all  taken  uj),  and  too  liear  for  a  person  in  my  circumstances  to 
buy.  The  Ohio  is  my  ultimate  object ;  there  land  may  be  had  in 
plenty  for  a  dollar  and  a  quarter,  or  5.9.  Cd.  sterling,  per  aci^.  I 
arrived  here  about  the  middle  of  June,  and  have  been,  for  the  j)riu* 
cipal  part  of  the  time  since,  in  the  employ  of  a  Mr.  Watson,  an 
Englishman,  from  Northuuiberland,  of  whom  1  bought  a  coiv,  for 
•which  I  paid  him  in  work,  besides  supporting  my  faintly.  An  ho- 
nest, industrious  man  can  maintain  his  family  better  by  three 
days*  work  here,  than  he  can  in  Eni;land  by  six.  It.  is  the  univer- 
sal custom  here  for  the  employer  to  find  the  person  employed  in 
victuals,  r^rain  is  very  low  at  present;  wheat  may  be  bought  for 
Is,  6d.  sterling  money  per  bushel  ;  and  the  other  kinds  of  grain 
proportionally  low.  Butcher's  meat,  of  all  kinds,  is  exceedingly 
cheap  ;  every  farmer  here  has  an  orchard,  in  which  the  apples  and 
peaches  Jiang  almost  as  thick  as  your  hops.  Clothing  is  about  the 
same  here  as  in  England.  Money  is  scarce  at  present,  owing  to 
there  being  no  demand  abroad  for  grain,  but  everything  else  is  in 
the  utmost  profusion  ;    aid  1  look  for\^ard^  with   a  confident  and 


A  towr,  ')f  4,802  inhabitants,  about  200  miles  from  New  York. 


1st  May,  1832.  225 

well-fonnded  hope,  to  the  time,  as  not  far  distant,  when  I  shall  be  a 
freeholder,  and  call  no  manhy  the  degrading'  name  of  master.  This, 
you  will  possibly  say,  is  ail  idle  rant ;  but  no,  1  am  acquainted  with 
many  here  who  came  to  this  country  poor  and  pennylcss,  z^//o  now 
possess  Jine  freeholds  of  from  100  to  300  acres,  fine  houses ^  barns 
and  orchards,  thriving  flocks  of  cattle,  sheep,  S{c.  Wl)at  others  have 
done  why  may  not  I  accomplish  ?  This  is,  in  truth,  the  land  of 
hope.  Labour  is  a  pleasurable  exertion,  because  all  its  profits  go 
to  enrich  yourself  and  not  another*  As  your  letters  to  me  may  pos- 
sibly not  arrive  before  J  depart  to  the  Ohio,  direct  them  toRobert 
Watson,  to  be,  by  him,  forwarded  to  me. 

Your  dutiful  son, 

JOHN  WATSON. 

Mr,  Stephen  Wats  on  ^  Sedlescomh,  near  Battle, 
County  of  Sussex,  Old  England* 

No.  3. 

Aurora,*  Dearborn  Countv,  Indiana  State, 
June  15th,  ^822. 

Dear  Father, — RecoUcctinj^  my  promise  to  you,  not  to  write  till 
I  was  perfectly  settled,  you  would  not  expect  a  Ittter  so  soon  as 
you  mig:ht  otherwise  have  done.  1  now  consider  myself  as  so  set- 
tled; and,  though  1  have,  some  time  ago,  written  a  letter  to  you, 
yet  it  may  have  miscarried  ;  and  1  not  only  think  it  ri»;ht  that  you 
should  be  acquainted  with  my  situation,  but  1  wish  that  )ou.  with 
all  our  family  and  friends,  could  be  with  us.  We  have  suffered 
many  hardships,  as  the  statement  of  our  journey  will  show  you  ; 
but  they  were  occasioned  by  my  being  a  stranger  to  the  country. 
You  will  recollect  that  1  started,  with  my  wife  and  our  children,  in 
the  hr\g  1Vellington,for  St.  John's,  NfW  Brunswick,  where  we  ar- 
river  June  \bth,  1819,  after  losing  one  of  our  mates,  by  lightning', 
and  one  seaman  ;  there  we  remained  till  March  15th,  1820.  New 
Brunswick,  the  winter  too  severe  to  profit  much  by  farming,  I  de- 
termined to  leave  it,  at  all  hazards  ;  1,  therefore,  with  my  wife,  got 
a  hand  sleigh,  in  which  I  placed  the  children,  and  drew  them 
on  the  ice  up  the  St,  John's  river,  about  360  miles,  May  and  myself 
walking,  drawing  the  children  after  us.  You  must  also  recollect 
that  100  miles  of  this  was  not  settled,  being  all  wood.  We  arrived 
at  the  head  of  St.  John's  river.  We  travt^lled  on  in  the  same  man- 
ner, across  snow  i\nd  ice,  to  the  great  river  St.  Laurence,  about 
180  miles  below  Quebec;  there  we  found  the  country,  along  the 
bank,  thickly  settled.  1  then  built  myself  a  light  waggon,  and 
had  all  our  fiynily  provisioned  during  the  time  of  ?tiaking  the  wag' 
gon  for  ^^  I  thank  you:**  the  good  people,  who  Avere  French  Cana- 
dians, wishing  us  very  much  to  stay  with  them.  In  this  waggon 
our  children  were  drawn  by  myself  for  upwards  of  400  fniles,  to 
Kingston,  at  the  month  of  the  lake  Ontario,      There   (as  at  every 


Population  549. 
l5 


226  Two-penny  Trash; 

other  place,  we  met  with  uncommon  kindness)  a  gentleman,  quite 
a  stranger,  not  only  sent  us  by  the  steam-boat,  free  of  all  expense^ 
to  Fort  George,  but  put  six  or  seven  dollars  into  our  pockets  be- 
sides. From  Fort  George  we  crossed  into  the  United  States,  and 
passed  the  summer  at  Geneva,  Ontario  County,  New  York  State. 
Hearing  a  more  favourable  account  of  the  State  of  Indiana,  I  once 
more  started  on  a  ramble,  and,  travelling  across  the  State  of  New 
York,  I  came  to  O'Lean  Point,  on  the  Alleghany  river;  which 
river,  a  very  rapid  one,  I  came  down  in  a  flat  boat  to  Pittsburgti ; 
here  I  staid  two  days,  and,  passing  on,  after  being  detained  by 
head  winds,  and  the  water  being  very  low,  landed  at  Aurora, 
situated  at  the  mouth  of  Hogan  Creek.  Here  I  found  myself  a 
stranger,  without  friends,  acquaintance,  utensils  of  any  kind,  or 
77ionei/y  having  spent  our  last  dollar  a  day  or  two  before;  added  to 
which,  njyself  and  all  our  family  were  caught  by  illness  for  six  or 
eight  weeks,  without  the  power  of  doing  anything.  But  no  sooner 
was  our  situation  known,  than  we  had  plenty  of  provisions  broxight 
to  us,  and,  as  our  strengtVi  recovered,  I  obtained  work  at  digging, 
&c.  My  ^'ife  iookin  sewihg,  and,  by  degrees,  we  liave  worked  it 
to  that  1  have  two  cows,  two  calves,  nine  pigs,  and  one  calf  expected 
in  August.  James  is  now  at  school,  and  1  intend  to  send  two  in  the 
winter.  I  have  joined  with  a  farmer  in  cropping:  that  is,  I  re- 
ceived one -half  of  the  produce,  and  had  the  team  found  me.  1  now 
am  working  for  an  English  gentleman,  named  Harris,  who  is  build- 
ing in  Aurora,  and  owns  four  quarter  sections  up  the  Creek.  Much 
good  land  can  be  bought,  far  distant,  for  one  dollar  and  a  quarter 
per  acre,  and  improved  land  for  not  much  more  :  indeed,  so  good 
is  the  prospect  for  a  man  who  must  \\yie,  by  industry,  that  I  wish  all 
my  friends  and  acquaintance  were  here  with  me.  J  can  safely  say, 
I  would  not,  nor  would  my  Mary,  return  to  England  on  any  account 
whatever.  We  are  now  all  in  good  health,  and  are  very  desirous 
of  heariiig  from  you.  Direct  to  John  Watson,  Aurora,  Dearborn 
County,  Indiaua  State,  United  States.  1  wish  you  would  also  be 
very  particular  not  to  put  the  letter  into  the  post-office,  as  it  will  be 
so  long  in  coming;  but  put  it  into  the  letter-bag  of  some  ship 
bouiid  to  New  York  or  Philadelphia.  In  the  earnest  desire  ofhear- 
ijyg  from  you, 

I  remain  yours, 

JOHN  WATSON. 
The  best  port  foryou  to  come  to  would  be  Philadelphia  or  Baltimore. 

Mr,  Stephen  TValson,  Parish  of  Sedlescomb, 

near  Battle^  Sussex,  Old  England,  ^ 


No.  4. 

Aurora,  Dearborn  County,  Indiana, 
April  26th,  1823. 

Dear  Fateier  and  Mother, — I  now  write  with  greater  pleasure 
than  1  have  ever  yet  done,  as  it  is  in  answer  to  yours,  dated  Feb- 


1st  May,  1832.  22T 

r%»ary  the  2nd,  the  only  one  I  have  received  ;  the  others,  I  suppose, 
iniist  have  gone  to  Canada,  where  you  might  tiiinkl  was  settled.  It 
proved  very  gratifying  to  us  to  hear  that  you  all  enjoy  such  general 
cood  health,  excepting  father  Vaughan  and  sister,  who  could  not 
Eavebeen  expected  to  remain  long,  having  been  ill  so  long.  Though 
your  letter  was  written  by  several  persons,  we  cannot  answer  them  se- 
}>aratel y,  but  must  beg  of  you  to  read  all  to  them.  You  should  hav^ 
mentioned  who  my  brother  Jam^s  married  ;  we  suppose  it  must  be 
Henry  Freeland's  sister,     ff^e  would  recommend  all  our  acquaint- 
nncesy  who  are  tired  of  paying  tithes  and  taxes  ^  to  come  here^  V)hei'e 
taxes  are  unknown,  and  taxes  hardly  worth  mentioning,  compared 
to  what  they  are  with  you.     The  only  tax  we  have  paid  is  one  day'* 
work  on  the   road,  and  50  cents,  or  2^.  3«?.  for  one  yoke  of  oxen. 
You  say  England  is  in  a  very  bad  state,  and  farmers  are  got  very 
low.     NVe  would  say,  let  them  come  here  :  we  were  worth  nothing 
when  we  landed  at  this  place,  and  now  we  have  one  yoke  of  oxeny 
one  cow,  nine  hogs,  and  we  intend   having  another  cow.     We  arc 
not  much  concerned  about  Michadmas  and  Lady-Hay  here,  for  as 
many  farms  as  we  choose,  we  could  have   for  paying  one-third  of 
the  produce.     We  have  just  taken  ten  acres  upon  these  terms,  and 
John  is  busily  engaged  in  ploughing  for  corn  ;  he  wishes  his  uncle 
Edward   was  with  him  to  help.     Brother  Stephen   inquires  if  hft 
could  get  employment;  we  answer,  that  any  person  desirous  of 
obtaining  a  living  may  do  it,  and  that  easily  :   if.  he  comes,  let  him 
bring  all  the  money  he  can,  and  what  clothing  he  has  ;  but  not  to 
spend  any  money  in  buying  unnecessary  things  in  England  ;  here 
the  mojiey  Will  pay  him  much  better  than  there  in  laud.     Rabbits 
and  pigeons,  particularly  the  latter,  are  very  abundant  ;  and  squir- 
rels, which  are  very  fine  eating.     There  are   also  great  plenty  of 
fish  in  the  river  for  those  who  take  the  trouble  to  catch  them.  Part- 
ridges are  also  very  numerous,  and  wild  turkeys.     We  bought  one. 
for  twenty-five  cents,  or  \s,  \\d.  of  your  money,  which  lasted  us  for, 
four  meals.     Meat  we  buy  for  two  cents  per  pound.     John  often 
talks  of  his  grandmother,  and  says  we  could  keep  her  without  work' 
ing.     Whilst  this   letter  is  writiig,  my  wife  is  eating  preserved 
peaches  and  bread,  and   washing  them  down  with  good  whiskey' 
and  water.     When  our  last  letter  was-  written,  I  n\entioned  I  was 
working  for  Mr.  Harris,  an  English  gentleman  ;  I  am  still  working 
for  him,  and  probably  shall  do  for  some  time.     You  express  a  wi^h 
to  know  all  our  children  ;  John,  bora  April  22nd,   1809;  James, 
October  18th,   1813;  Naomi,  February   7th,    1815;  Henry,  April 
11th,    1818;    Eliza  Anne,    boni  January  21st,    1821,  in  Langley 
township,  on  Hogan  Creek,  Dearborn  County,  Indiana.     Henry 
is  very  well,  generally  in  mi'^chief,  like  all  other  children,  and  re- 
cfeived  a  kiss,  as  did  all  the  others,  from  sister.     All  our  friends 
who  come  we  would   recommend  to  come  in  an  American  ship, 
atid  land  either  at  Baltimore  or  Philadelphia  ;  but  we  should  advise 
them  to  start  immediately  after  landing  from  the  western  States, 
as  they  afford  a  better  prospect   for  poor  people,  or   indeed  any 
other,  than  the  eastern  or  older  States.     Among  many  other  ad- 
yfetJtages  we  enjoy  in  this  country,  we  can  make  our  oton  soa^. 


228  Two-penny  Trash; 

candles,  and  sugars  \  which  we  make  hy  tapping  tlie  maple-tree, 
in  the  breaking  of  the  frost,  and  boiling  the  water  down,  clearing 
it  with  eggs  or  milk.  \Wq  wish  very  n»uch  to  see  l)rother  William 
and  Stephen  ;  if  they  come  they  cannot  be  in  a  worse  situation 
tijan  we  were  when  we  landed,  and  for  many  months  after  :  but 
then  their  prospects  would  be  better  than  by  remaining  in  Eng- 
land. Our  brother  William,  sister  Sarah,  and  our  dear  mother, 
must  not  be  hurt  if  we  did  not  mention  them  in  our  last  letter ;  it 
was  not  an  intentional  neglect,  for  our  affections  for  them  are  as 
strong  as  ever,  and  very  often  do  we  wish  they  were  here;  for  we 
think  it  would  be  much  better  for  them,  as  well  as  William  Glover, 
of  whom  we  wish  to  hear, — nothing  being  said  of  him  in  your 
letter.  Mary  begs  you  will  be  particular  in  mentioning  her  relations 
in  your  next  letter,  which  you  must  not  be  angry  if  we  ask  to  be 
written  closer,  so  as  to  contain  more  information,  as  the  postage 
of  letters  is  rather  expensive ;  not  that  we  grudge  the  money,  but 
we  think  the  sheet  might  he  made  to  hold  more. 

And  now,  our  dear  Father  and  Mother,  as  it  is  not  very  likely 
that  we  shall  meet  on  this  side  of  the  grave,  may  it  be  oui-fervent 
prayer,  that  in  the  life  to  come,  where  there  shall  be  no  alloy,  no 
griefs  or  difficulties,  we  may  ail  unite;  and  there  may  you,  with 
all  the  blessed,  salute  your  ever  dutiful  and  affectionate  children, 

JOHN  and  MARY  WATSON. 

P.  S.  If  Stephen  comes,  we  wish  him  to  bring  some  rye-grass, 
trefoil,  broom  seed,  cabbage  seeds,  and  f^U  garden  seeds.  Be  sure 
if  he  does  come,  or  any  others  of  our  friends,  to  let  us  know  as  soon 
as  possible.  Mary  has  just  made  a  hushel  of  soap,  which  cost  me 
nxjthing  but  her  attention  and  a  little  labour.  Those  animals  called 
in  your  country  Exciseman,  are  not  known  in  this  country,  so  that 
we  boil  soap,  make  candles,  gather  hops,  and  many  other  things, 
without  fear,  which  you  must  not  do.  We.  are  under  no  fear  about 
our  children  not  having  food:  we  have  finer  pork  and  fowls  than 
you  have,  and  plenty  of  them.  Fowls  are  sold  from  2^.  3cZ.  to  35.  ^\d. 
per  dozen  ;  pork  at  \d.  per  lb, ;  eggs  \\d.  for  six  dozen. 

Mr,  Stephen  TVatson,  sen,^  Sedlescomb,  near 

Battle,  Sussex,  Old  England, 
Per  first  packet  from  New  York  to  Liverpool.  Paid  to  New  York. 

No.  5. 

Aurora,  March  9th,  1825. 
Dear  Father  and  Mother, — It  is  now  two  years  since  we  heard 
from  you,  excepting  in  a  letter  from  brother  Stephen,  saying  you 
were  all  well.  We  are  longing  to  hear  what  you  are  all  doing  ;  the 
particulars  of  all  the  family  :  when  you  sent  tlie  letter,  you  did  not 
say  anything  about  William  and  Sarah,  neither  who  James  and 
Ann  was  married  to.  J  want  to  know -what  is  become  of  William 
Glover,  and  whether  he  loves  drink  as  well  as  he  used  to  do  ;  if  he 
does,  tell  him  there  is  plenty  of  whiskey  here ;  if  a  man  wants  to 


1st  May,  1832.  229 

kill  himself,  he  need  not  he  long  about  it,  for  lie  may  g-et  a  gallon 
a  day  and  his  board;  but  I  hope  better  things  of  him  ;  1  hope  he 
has  seen  into  the  folly  of  it  before  thi«.  We  should  be  very  glad  to 
hear  from  all  our  friends:  we  think  they  would  do  a  great  deal 
betrer  here  than  in  England  ;  we  cannot  think  whnt  makes  so  many 
of  them  go  bach,  for  we  would  not  come  hack  again  for  Mr.  Tidden 
Smiffi's  farm  and  alt  he  has  got.  The  poor  home-sick  things  ! 
were  it  not  for  their  poor  children,  we  would  not  care  if  they  went 
to  bed  without  supper  all  their  lives  !  As  for  brother  Stephen,  we 
should  like  to  know  if  he  is  gone  back  too;  for  we  expected  him 
this  last  winter,  but  have  been  disappointed  ;  we  are  rather  uneasy 
at  not  receiving  a  letter  before  this;  if  you  Inow  anything  about 
him,  we  should  be  glad  if  you  would  let  us  know.  We  are  still 
farming,  have  got  this  season  about  ten  acres  of  very  promising 
wlieat;  seven  acres  of  oats,  thirteen  acres  of  corn,  one  acre  for  flax, 
between  one  and  two  acres  for  ])otatoes  and  other  garden  stufl*. 
We  have  got  a  horse,  a  yoke  of  oxen,  a  pair  of  young  steers,  a  milch 
cow,  and  plenty  of  pigs  and  fowls.  Tliere  are  plenty  of  English 
people  in  and  around  our  nei j;hhourMood  :  we  rent  land  of  an 
English  woman  (true  enough,  for  /have  written  this  letter).  We 
feel  ourselves  at  home  among  the  people  :  we  have  regular  preac!  - 
ing  by  the  Methodists  and  Baptists,  Hit  no  pm'son  to  tithe  vs.  We 
make  our  own  soap  and  candles;  we  have  just  got  between  forty 
and  fifty  yards  of  linen  from  the  loom  from  our  last  year*s  flair. 
Land  is  1|  per  acre.  Congress  price;  but  land  near  the  Ohio  is 
chiefly  taken  up,  and  higher  priced.  We  live  a  mile  from  the 
river.  Aurora  is  on  the  bank  of  the  (^hio,  so  of  course  we  are  the 
same  distance  from  it.  We  have  another  little  daughter,  named 
Sarah  Joana ;  she  was  born  on  the  29th  of  February,  1824  ;  the 
other  children  are  all  well ;  John  is  grown  very  nn)ch  lately  ;  he 
is  almost  like  a  man  ;  he  has  just  been  out  a  month,  and  earned 
himself  a  summer's  suit  of  clothes,  though  he  is  employed  at  home 
on  the  farm.  1  let  him  have  his  wish  ;  he  sends  his  best  respects 
to  his  grandmother.  There  is  pdenty  of  walnuts,  hickory  nuts, 
wild  graj)es,  plums,  &c.  in  the  woods;  peaches  grow  in  great 
abundance  ;  the  trees  hear  in  three  years  from  the  stone.  Apples, 
melons,  pumpkins,  and  a  variety  of  other  fruits,  are  very  easily 
raised.  Write  soon,  and  direct  to  John  Watson,  Aurora,  Dearhorn 
County,  Indiana. 

From  your  aflfectionate  son  and  daughter, 

JOHN  and  MARY  WATSON. 

P.  S.  We  should  be  very  happy  to  see  you  ;  but  as  we  do  not  ex- 
pect to  see  VQU  this  side  of  Eternity,  we  beseech  you  to  prepare  for 
the  awful  day,  when  we  must  all  give  account  of  the  deeds  done  in 
the  body,  it  is  the  one  thing  needful  :  do  not  put  it  off  till  it  is  too 
late,  but  fly  to  the  arms  of  a  bleeding  Redeemer,  who  is  willing  to 
save  yoa. 

Mr,  Stephen  ffatso7i,  Sedlescomb,  Battle, 


230  Two-PEKNY  Trash; 

No.  6. 

Dearborn  County,  Indiana, 
[November  29th,  1828. 

Deah  Father  and  Mother, — We  gladly  embrace  this  oppor- 
tunity of  writing  to  you,  to  say  that  we  are  all  enjoying  good  health 
at  present,  and  we  sincerely  hope  that,  at  the  perusal  ol"  these  few 
lines,  you  will  be  the  same.  We  received  your  letter  November 
8th,  which  gave  us  great  satisfaction  that  you  are  well,  and  we  are 
glad  to  hear  that  some  of  you  intend  coming  to  America:  and  we 
greatly  desire  that  you  would  all  come  to  this  rich  fertile  country  ; 
for  we  assure  you  that  there  is  sufficient  room  for  you  all  in  this 
Palestine  land  ;  though  we  do  not  believe  every  f>art  of  America  so 
good  as  where  we  live,  and  especially  the  part  of  America  where 
brother  Stephen  lives  j  for  we  know,  by  experience,  that  it  is  not 
half  so  good  a  country  for  a  poor  man  to  get  a  living  as  where 
we  are,  though  they  are  well  satisfied  where  they  iive,  and  we  be- 
lieve their  country  far  better  than  Old  England.  Yet  we  know  that 
their  country  is  not  half  so  good  a  part  of  America  as  where  we 
live.  But  they  know  no  better,  for  they  have  not  travelled  through 
America  to  see  the  difference.  But  it  is  not  so  with  us  ;  for  we 
travelled  2000  or  3000  miles  through  America  before  we  settled 
ourselves  ;  therefore  we  are  better  judges  than  they  can  be.  Here 
you  can  rent  land  by  giving  one  third  of  what  is  raised  on  the  land ; 
and  a  man  can  get  eighteen  pounds  of  pork  or  beef  for  a  day's  worJ^, 
or  three  pecks  of  wheat,  and  every  other  kind  of  provision  cheap 
accordingly.  Men  who  labour  by  the  day  get  the  above  articles, 
and  are  boarded  in  time  of  doing  the  work.  We  are  highly  gratified 
to  think  of  father  and  mother  coming,  and  more  so  shall  we  be  if 
you  all  will  come.  We  advise  you  to  come  to  New  York,  and  up  ' 
the  river  to  Albany,  where  Stephen  lives.  There  you  can  get  infor- 
mation of  the  road  to  my  house  ;  but  if  so  be  that  you  are  willing 
to  come  to  us  without  coming  by  Stephen,  we  think  it  much  the  bes^ 
for  you  to  land  at  Baltimore,  and  come  from  there  to  Pittsburgh,  on 
the  Ohio  river,  where  you  can  get  a  passage  in  the  steam -boat, 
for  a  very  Ceiy  few  dollars,  to  Aurora,  within  five  miles  of  my  house. 
It  would  be  a  great  deal  cheaper  and  nigher  from  Baltimore  or 
Philadelphia  than  Albany,  from  either  of  the  three  ports.  You 
must  inquire  for  Pittsburgh,  on  the  Ohio  river.  We  want  you  to 
fetch  with  you  early-york,  sugar  loaf,  curtle,  savoy ^  imd  red  cabbage 
seeds ;  and  trefoil y  lucerne,  and  a  little  broofn  seed ;  and  we  wish  you 
to  tell  James  Bridges  to  ccime  to  America  if  he  can,  for  we  know 
that  he  can  get  a  comfortable  living  with  half  the  labour  he  has  to 
do  at  home.  Plenty  of  land  can  be  bought  within  twenty  miles  of 
our  house  for  one  dollar  and  a  quarter  per  acrfe.  We  advise  you 
to  come  in  an  American  ship;  and,  finally,  we  think  it  too  tedious 
to  mention  all  the  good  things  in  America,  but  invite  you  to  come 
and  see  for  yourselves.  So  no  more  at  present  from  your  affec- 
tionate son  and  daughter, 

JOHN  and  MARY  WATSON. 


:     1st  May,  1832.  231 

Now,  my  friends,  here  you  see  ^  proof,  that  the  English 
colonies  are  no  places  to  go  to,  unless  for  worthless  slaves. 
For  prostitutes^  pickpockets,  vagabond  idlers,  they  may 
do  5  and,  perhaps,  they  are  good  enough  for  the  halt  and 
lame,  and  the  blind  and  the  deformed  to  creep  about  in  5 
but,  for  honest  people,  able  and  willing  to  work,  the 
United  States  is  the  country,  if  people  musty  or  will  go 
away. 

But,  now,  why  should  honest  people,  able  and  willing 
to  work,  go  away  at  all?  The  base  wretches,  who  live 
on  the  taxes,  say  that  the  people  are  too  numerbus  here ; 
that  there  is  an  over-population^  or  over-quantity  ofpeo-* 
pie!  This  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  strange  thing  to  hear, 
even  without  our  inquiring  at  all  into  the  facts  of  the  case; 
for  how  comes  this  to  be  the  case  now,  which  never  was 
the  case  before;  how  comes  the  people  to  be  too  numerous 
at  this  time,  when-  they  were  never  known  to  be  too  nu- 
merous before  }  There  is  the  same  propoitionate  number 
of  both  sexes,  just  as  there  always  was  ;  women  are 
pregnant  the  same  length  of  time  that  they  used  to  be 3 
they  bring  forth  still  only  one  child  at  a  time,  except  now- 
and-then,  which  was  always  the  case.  What,  then,  should 
cause  this  over-stock  of  people  now  more  thea^  formerly  ? 
Upon  the  face  of  the  thing,  it  is  false  and  ridiculous. 

Then,  as  to  the  fact,  if  there  be  too  many  working 
people  in  England ;  and,  let  me  stop  here  to  observe,  that 
it  is  only  the  working  people  that  these  tax-eating  vaga- 
bonds say  are  too  numerous.  They  do  not  say,  that  the 
pensioners,  the  sinecure  folks,  the  grantees,  the  allow- 
ance-folks, the  halt-pay-folks,  the  military  academy  folks, 
the  poor  parsons  (whom  we  are  taxed  to  relieve),  the 
placemen,  the  taxing  people,  the  fundholders,  the  swarms 
of  clerks  in  offices ;  they  do  not  say,  that  these  endless  crews 
of  idlers,  all  of  whom  live  upon  the  fruit  of  the  people's 
labour  5  the  tax-eating  vagabonds  do  not  say,  that  these 
are  too  numerous!  If,-then,  the  working  people  of  Eng- 
land be  too  numerous  -,  if  there  be  too  many  of  them  •  if 
this  be  the  case,  how  comes  it,  that  all  our  great  towns 
are  full  of  Irish  working  people  ?  No  English  working 
people  go  to  Ireland  -,  and  all  our  great  towns  are  crowded 
with  Irish.     Either  they  wor^  here,  or  they  live  here  as 


232  Two-penny  Trash; 

vagabonds  :  in  the  Litter  case,  where  is  the  law  :  in  the 
former  case,  the  over-population  story  must  be  an  tw- 
piideiit  lie.  But,  again,  if  England  be  over-stocked  with 
working  people,  how  connes  it  that  swarms  of  Irish  are 
wanted  to  get  in  the  harvest?  That  they  come  is  certain; 
that  they  are  employed  at  ifhc  harvest  is  certain  ;  and, 
could  this  possibly  be,  if  we  had  too  many  working  peo- 
ple? ^'  Oh  !'  but  *'  we  have,"  say  tlie  tax-eating  vaga- 
bonds, not  ''  too  many  in  harvest  time,  but  too  many  the 
^'  rest  of  the  year!^  Insolent  and  brutal  vagabonds  ! 
You  have  not  too  many  footmen,  when  you  have  ^"^  par  ties  j' 
but  too  many  at  other  times  !  But,  do  you  discharge 
them,  when  the  parties  are  over,  and  hire  them  again  for 
the  next  parties?  Brutal  vagabonds,  insolent  vagabonds, 
that  ought  to  be  struck  down  to  the  earth,  you  have  not 
too  ntany  hr>rses  to  draw  you  about  in  summer,  but  do 
you  keep  tiiem  without  food  in  winter:  Ah!  vagabonds, 
it  is  yo^i  who  xire  too  numerous ;  you  know  that  the  Re- 
form Bill  would  make  you  less  numerous,  and,  therefore, 
you  are  moving  earth  and  hell  against  the  Reform  Bill. 

One  thing  is  clear,  and  that  is,  that,  as  long  as  the  go- 
vernment shall  tell  the  working  people,  that  they  are  too 
numerous,  and,  at  the  same  time,  tax  them  (as  it  now 
does)  to  raise  money  to  get  some  of  them  away  out  of  the 
coimtry;  as  long  as  the  government  shall  do  this,  the 
working  people  have  a  clear  right  to  make  use  of  all  the 
means  in  their  power,  to  keep  out,  or  drive  out,  the 
Irish;  and  that,  in  the  selection  of  these  means,  they 
ought  to  consider  themselves  as  restricted  only  by  the 
law.  They  have,  further,  a  clear  right  to  hate  every  man 
who  employs  these  Irish;  and  to  act  toward:^  him  as  their 
enemy,  as  far,  and  to  the  utmost  as  far,  as  the  law  will 
allow.  For,  if  they  themselves  be  already  loo  numerous^ 
if  it  be  right  to  tax  them,  in  order  to  raise  money  to  send 
them  out  of  their  own  country,  on  account  of  their  over^ 
numbers,  that  man  who  brings  Irish  here,  must  be  their 
enemy,  and  must  deserve  all  that  their  enmity  can  legally 
inflict. 

Then,  again,  why  do  the  tax-eaters  think  the  people  too 
numerous  ?  A  nation  can  never  be  too  numerous,  if  there 
be  enough  for  them  all  to  eat  and  drink:  and  what  does 


1st  May,  1832.  233 

this  government  do?  Why  shut  out  Corn  by  /ait',  and 
thereby  make  the  quantity  of  food  less  than  it  otherwise 
would  be;  so  that,  while  this  government  is  taxing  the 
people  to  raise  money  to  send  them  away,  on  the  pretence 
that  there  are  too  many  mouths,  it  has  shut  out  corn  on 
the  pretence  that  there  is  too  much  food  !  What  a  govern- 
ment !  what  a  parliament !  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  peo- 
ple under  it  are  in  ruin  and  misery !  We  have  too  many 
7?ieiiths,  and  the  parliament  will  not  let  us  exchange  some 
of  our  manufactured  yoods  for  Corn,  though  our  goods 
are  at  a  ruinously  low  price!  We  have  too  many  mouths^ 
and  yet  we  have  too  much  barley,  and  the  parliament 
taxes  our  barley  so  much,  that  the  mouths  are  obliged  to 
take  in  waler  instead  of  leer  !  Oh  !  all  ye  powers  that 
torment  the  soul  of  man^  was  the  like  of  this  ever  heard 
of  before  !  When  those  who  are  now  in  the  cradle  sliall 
hear  of  this,  will  they  not  blush  for  the  tameness  of  their 
fathers  !  W^ill  they  not  avert  their  eyes  from  the  de- 
grading picture,  and  entertain  a  wish  that  their  progeni- 
tors may  be  for  ever  forgotten  1 

But  what  can  have  produced  this  perverse  way  of  think- 
ing and  these  abominable  fooleries  about  ^n  over-popula- 
tion? This  is  the  case  :  the  taxing -syst em ^  \\\\\q\\  keeps 
such  swarms  in  idleness,  has  produced,  and  is  producing, 
such  masses  of  misery,  that  the  idlers  are  frightened  at  the 
thought  of  the  conse(]uences.  Every  one  knows,  that 
such  misery  never  existed  before ;  the  tax-eaters  know,  as 
well  as  the  rest  of  us,  that  the  misery  arises  from  the  tax- 
ing-system ;  but  tliey  wish  io  ascribe  it  to  something  else  ; 
for,  if  ascribed  to  the  taxing-system,  that  system  must  be 
destroyed,  and  the  tax-caters  along  with  it.  Therefore, 
they  ascribe  the  misery  to  over-population,  an  evil  which 
the  taxinir-svstem  cannot  have  caused!  Here  is  the  real 
origin  of  the  GRAND  LIE  about  the  populi';tion  -,  by  the 
means  of  which  he,  barefaced  as  it  is,  the  tax-eaters,  aided 
by  the  villanous  press,  have  deluded  the  nation  for  many 
years,  and-cjuietly  sucked  up  its  substance  at  the  same  time. 
Tiie  wretches  of  the  press  (I  speak  with  some  exceptions) 
ViXQ  Q,  second-hand  species  of  tax-eaters ;  and  they  have 
laboured  most  efficiently  to  keep  up  the  delusion.  They 
know^  that,  out  of  the  price  of  every  busiiel  of  malt,  two- 


234  Two-penny  Trash; 

thirds  is  caused  by  the  tasc  upon  it  -,  and,  yet,  the  base 
dogs,  when  they  see  the  labourer  drink  water  instead  of 
beer,  that  he  used  to  drink,  ascribe  the  cliange  to  over- 
population,  and  not  at  all  to  the  tax  !j  Of  all  the  curses 
that  ever  afflicted  mankind,  a  base  aud  corrupt  press  is  the 
greatest. 

However,  suppose  we  were  to  admit  that  there  is  an 
over -pop  Illation  in  England,  that  there  are  too  many 
mouths  in  it,  in  proportion  to  the  food  and  drink  it  pro* 
duces  5  suppose  we  were  to  admit  this  ;  what  are  the  mea- 
sures which  a  wise  lawgiver  would  take  to  remedy  the 
evil  ?  Why,  to  cause  those,  who  do  not  now  produce  any- 
thing, to  produce  something,  if  able ;  or,  if  lessening  the 
number  of  mouths  were  the  remedy,  to  send  away  these 
non-producers.  One  or  the  other  of  these  is  the  remedy 
that  a  wise  lawgiver  would  adopt.  Our  lawgiver  pursues 
an  exactly  contrary  course  :  he,  great  army  and  sword 
police  captain  as  he  is,  adds  daily  to  the  number  of 
mouths  of  those  who  do  not  work,  and  who  never  will 
work,  until  forced,  and  is  sending  away,  as  fast  as  he  can, 
those  who  do  work  and  are  ivilling  always  to  work.  He 
thus  diminishes  the  means  of  production,  while  he  adds  to 
the  consumption  by  idlers  :  and  this  is  his  way  of  removing 
the  distress  of  the  zuorking-peoplej  and  restoring  general 
happiness  and  content. 

.  It  is  here  that  this  government  and  parliament  of  ours 
are  seen  in  their  true  light ;  here  it  is,  in  their  invariable 
support  and  favour  of  all  that  is  idle;  of  all  the  swarms 
that  live  oh  the  fruit  of  the  care,  industry,  and  toil  of  the 
people  3  of  every  creature,  low  or  high,  that  lives  on  the 
taxes,  whether  directly  or  indirectly.  This  is  the  great 
characleristic  of  this  government  and  parliament ;  and  of 
every  thing  having  authority  under  them,  however  low 
that  thing  may  be  5  and  1  need  not  tell  the  readers  of  the 
Trash,  that  this  conduct  is  precisely  the  contrary  to  that 
which  is  pointed  out  by  reason,  by  justice,  and  expressly 
by  HOLY  WRIT,  which  teaches  us,  that  even  the  ''  ox  is 
not  to  be  muzzled  as  he  treadeth  out  the  corn"  that  he 
has  helped  to  raise,  and  that  **  he  who  will  not  work,  nei- 
ther shall  he  eat.*'  In  making  this  last  quotation,  a  cu- 
rious fact  occurs  to  my  recollection  3  and  it  is,  too,  illustra- 


•     1st  May,  1832.  235 

tive  of  the  conduct,  it  is  a  curious  instance  of  the  conduct, 
of  this  our  celebrated  THING. 

When  I  was  last  winter  on  my  Lecturing  tour  in  the 
North,  I  happened  to  learn  that  there  was  inscribed,  in 
large  letters^  on  the  POOR-HOUSE,  at  Maidstone,  in 
Kent  (in  which  county  Castlereagh  cut  his  throat,  at 
the  village  of  North  Cray),  these  words  :  **  IF  ANY 
WILL  NOT  WORK,  NEITHER  SHALL  HE  EAT." 
This  was  a  piece  of  information  most  opportune  for  me! 
Never  did  I,  after  (his,  give  a  lecture  without  introducing 
this  Maidstone-Inscription,  which  was,  of  course,  put 
up  by  authority  of  the  magistrates  (parsons  as  well  as 
others),  and  which,  so  made  use  of,  and  by  such  persons, 
and  for  such  an  end,  was  so  pat  to  my  purpose,  when  I 
was  talking  about  tiie  lord  and  lady  pensioners,  the  men 
and  women  sinecurists,  the  grantees,  the  allowance  people, 
the  dead- weight,  and  all  the  tribes  of  idlers  who  live  upoii 
the  taxes,  and  especially  about  the  parsons,  who  have  all 
the  benejices  and  none  of  the  praying  and  preaching  ; 
all  the  eating  and  none  of  the  working  !  Upon  these 
occasions  I  used  to  go  on  in  this  manner  :  '*  in  the  first 
*'  place,  gentlemen,  these  Kentish  magistrates  have  inter- 
**  polated^  have  misquoted,  the  words  of  Saint  Paul  5  for 
"  those  words  are  not,  '  if  any  will  not  work,  neither  shall 
^^  he  eat  ^'  but  they  are,  '  if  any  would  not  work,  neither 
"  should  he  eat.'  But  the  act  here  is  of  a  nature  much 
•^  more  scandalous  than  a  mere  misquotation  of  the 
*^  Scripture  :  it  is  a  misapplication  of  it  5  a  gross  per- 
*'  version  of  its  meaning ;  and  that  too  for  the  base  pur- 
*^  pose  of  justifying  cruelty  and  hardness  of  heart  to- 
'^  wards  the  poor  and  unfortunate^  as  applicable  to  whom 
*' Saint  Paul  never  made  use  of  these  words.  But  on 
*'  the  contrary,  he  used  them  in  addressing  himself  to  the 
"  first  Christian  ministers,  enjoining  them  to  work  for  their 
**  bread,  and  not  to  be  chargeable  to  those  whom  they 
**  taught,  enjoining  on  them  to  eat  the  bread  proceeding 
*^  from  their  own  labour.  Let  us,  however,  take  the  whole 
*'  passage,  which  you  will  find  in  the  following  words,  in 
^'  the  3d  chapter  of  the  second  Epistle  of  Saint  Paul  to 
'^  the  Thessalonians,  beginning  at  the  sixth  verse. 


236      .     '  Two-rENNY  Trash  ; 

6.  Now  we  command  you,  brethren,  in  the  name  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  that  ye  withdraw  yourselves  from  every  brother  that 
w.ilketh  disorderly,  aud  not  after  the  tradition  which  he  received 
of  us. 

7.  For  yourselves  know  how  ye  ought  to  follow  us  :  for  we  be- 
haved not  ourselves  disorderly  amou^  you  ; 

8.  Neither  did  wc  eat  any  man's  bread  fornought ;  but  wrought 
with  labour  and  travail  night  and  day,  that  we  might  not  be 
chargeable  to  any  of  you  t 

9.  Not  because  we  have  not  power,  but  to  make  ourselves  au  en- 
sample  unto  you  to  follow  us, 

10.  For  even  when  we  were  with  you,  this  we  commanded  you, 
that  if  any  would  not  work,  neither  should  he  eat. 

11.  For  we  hear  that  there  are  some  which  walk  among  you  dis- 
orderly, working  not  at  all,  but  are  busy  bodies. 

12.  Now  them  that.ai-e  such  we  command  and  exhort  by  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  that  with  quietness  they  work,  aud  eat  their  own 
bread. 

"  Thus  you  see,  gentlemen,  those  precepts  which  the 
Apostle  addressed  to  the  teachers  of  religion^  these 
parsons  and  justices  of  Kent  addressed  to  the  poorest  of 
the  ivor king-people  to  the  halt,  the  lame,  the  blind,  the 
widow,  the  orphan,  the  worn-out  labourer,  and  to  tliose 
who  cannot  obtain  employment !  It  is  often  said,  and 
it  was  once  proved,  that  the  Devil  can  quote  Scripture 
for  his  purposes  -,  and  is  not  this  very  much  like  one  of 
the  tricks  of  the  king  of  hell  ?  But  what  audacity  was 
here!  To  put  up  a  precept  like  this,  while  it  was  no- 
torious that  the  working- people  were  taxed  to  keep 
swarms  of  idlers,  numerous  as  the  sands  by  the  sea  ; 
while  it  was  notorious,  that  the  necessity  for  building 
this  poor-house  had  arisen  from  the  working-people 
having  hi^d  their  earnings  taken  from  them  to  support, 
in  idleness,  whole  families  of  the  aristocracy  and  their 
dependents  ]  while  it  was  notorious,  that  we  had  more 
idlers  to  support  than  all  the  other  nations  in  the  world 
put  together;  while  it  was  notorious,  that  the  dead- 
weight alone  cost  us  more  annually  than  the  amount 
oi  all  the  poor-rates  in  all  the  counties,  as  far  as  these 
were  applied,  to  the  relief  of  the  poor  ;  and  while  it  was 
also  notorious,  that  those  who  did  the  work  of  the 
church  were  in  a  half-starving  condition,  and  those  who 
did  none  of  its  work  were  wallowing  in  luxury  from  its 
revenues  !  What  audacity,  what  brazen  insolence  -,  what 


1st  May,  1832.  23 

'*  a  hardened  disregard  of  all  decency,  to  put  up,  under 
"  circumstances  like  these,  such  an  inscription  on  an 
".English  poor-house  !  Gentlemen,  base  will  be  the  man 
'*  who  will  vote  for  any  one  to  go  into  a  reformed  Par- 
'*  liament  for  any  part  of  Kent,  if  the  man  he  vote  for  will 
"  not  pledge  himself  to  make  this  text  of  Scripture  pi^ac^ 
'*  tically  apply  to  the  swarms  of  locusts,  who  now  devour 
"  the  fruit  of  the  people's  labour.'* 

This  was  the  way  in  which  I  used  to  go  on.  But  the 
best  part  of  the  story  remains  to  be  told.  I  began  to  in- 
troduce this  subject  into  my  lectures,  when  I  was  in 
Yorkshire  •,  and  I  think  I  did  it,  for  the  first  time,  at 
Wakefield,  though  I  am  not  quite  sure  of  that.  When 
I  came  home,  it  was  my  intention  to  have  some  good  sport 
at  Maidstone,  on  the  score  of  this  inscription  ;  but 
before  I  took  any  step  in  that  way,  I  thought  it  best  to 
be  sure  that  my  information  was  correct,  or,  rather,  that 
the  INSCRIPTION  was  still  on  the  poor-house;  for  that  it 
had  been  on  it  I  was  quite  sure,  knowing  well  the  strict  ve- 
racity of  my  informant,  who  had  first  seen  it  there  be- 
tween eleven  and  twelve  years  ago,  who  had  seen  it 
many  a  score  times  since,  who,  whenever  he  saw  the 
house,  had,  indeed,  always  seen  it  there  since  he  first 
knew  the  building  ;  but  who  did  not  recollect  the  precise 
time  when  he  saw  it  last.  In  order  to  come  at  the  fact, 
whether  the  inscription  still  remained-(of  which  I  could 
have,  however,  very  little  doubt),  I  wrote  to  a  friend  at 
Maidstone  to  go  and  read  it,  and  send  me  the  exact 
words  <}V\i,  THEY  WERE  GONE  !  Gone  !  Y^s,  painted 
over  a  little  while  before  !  But  my  friend  could  distinguish 
some  of  the  letters  under  the  paint,  and  could  clearly  make 
out  the  word  WORK  !  This  led  him  to  inquire  of  some 
person  in  authority  at  the  poor-house,  WHY  the  inscrip- 
tion had  been  effaced  3  and  he  received  for  answer,  that  it 
had  been  effaced,  "  because  it  was  thought  arbitrary  ;"  a 
word  which  the  country  people  always  make  use  of  to 
characterize  any  thing  tyrannically  unjust. 

O  God  !  This  tyrannical,  this  audacious  and  savage 
inscription  had  remained,  stuck  up  here  for  a  dozen 
years,  or  more,  to  insult  the  most  unfortunate  and 
most  miserable  of  the  good  and  industrious,  and  gen- 


238  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

tie  and  kind,  and  sincere^  working  people  of  this  best 
spot  of  earth  that  God,  in  his  goodness,  ever  gave  to 
man;  for  a  dozen  yearSy  or  more,  it  had,  by  authority 
of  the  magistrates  and  parsons  of  the  county,  been  stuck 
up  here,  in  defiance  of  the  feelings  of  common  humanity, 
to  give  an  additional  pang  to  the  half-broken  hearts  of 
those  who  had  been  driven  under  the  roof  of  this  house 
by  having  the  fruit  of  their  labour  taken  away  to  support 
idlers  ;  and,  at  the  end  of  that  dozen  years,  it  is  painted 
over,  *'  because  it  is  thought  arbitrary  ! " 

Now,  who  will  believe,  that  it  was  not  my  Yorkshire 
Lectures  that  rubbed  out  this  infamously  base  and  insolent 
INSCRIPTION  ?  Perhaps  not,  perhaps  the  '*  good,*'  and 
'^  great  good  too,'^  was  done  by  the  Chopsticks  themselves. 
No  matter  which  :  better  the  latter  tlian  the  former  ;  but 
no  matter  which.  The  thing,  though  small  and  quiet  in 
itself,  speaks  volumes  and  in  a  voice  of  thunder  !  It 
says  this  :  that  it  is  no  longer  thought,  that  the  working 
millions  can  be  grossly  and  basely  insulted  with  impu- 
nity. 

But,  now,  my  friends,  the  Working  People,  shall  we 
suffer  this  inscription  to  be  painted  over  r  Oh,  no  !  Let 
it  be  your  standing  motto  3  your  rallying  words  j  inscribe 
the  words  on  your  banners  3  to  the  famous  motto  of  the 
men  of  Kent,  ^'  we  will  not  live  upon  potatoes,'* 
add,  "  TUOSE  who  will  not  work,  shall  not  eat," 
Paint,  all  you,  the  electors  of  England,  these  words  on 
your  election-banners  5  vote  for  no  man  who  will  hot 
pledge  himself  to  cause  the  latter  to  be  enforced ;  and, 
then,  there  will  be  no  over-population ;  then  there  will 
be  plenty  of  food  and  drink,  and  clothing  for  all  who 
deserve  them  ;  then  you,  who  produce  everything  good, 
will  have  your  just  reward  and  due  enjoyment  in  the  couu-i- 
try  of  your  birth  3  and,  let  the  emigration  agents,  carry 
away  the  prostitutes,  tliieves,  and  others  who  will  not 
work,  to  starve  upon  the  rocks,  or  die  amongst  the  swamps 
of  Nova  Scotia  and  Canada. 

WM    COBBETT. 


1st  May,  1832,  239 

SEEDS 

FOR  SALE  AT  MR.  COBBETT'S  SHOP,  No.  11,  BOLT- 
COURT,  FLEET-STREET. 

LOCUST  SEED. 

''  Very  fine  and  fresh,  at  6s,  a  pound.  For  instructions  relative  to 
sowing  of  these  seeds,  for  rearing  the  plants,  for  making  plan- 
tations of  them,  fur  preparing  the  land  to  receive  them,  for  the 
after  cultivations,  for  the  pruning,  and  for  the  application  of  the 
timber ;  for  all  these  see  ray  ''  WOODLANDS  ;'*  or  Treatise 
ON  Timber  Trees  and  Underwood.     8vo.  14^. 

SWEDISH  TURNIP  SEED. 

•Any  quantity  under  lOlbs.,  lOd.  a  pound;  and  any  quantity 
jibove  lOlbs.  and  under  501bs*,  9^d.  a  pound  ;  any  quantity  above 
501bs.,  9</.  a  pound  ;  above  lOOlbs.,  B^d.  A  parcel  of  seed  may  be 
sent  to  any  part  of  the  kingdom  j  I  will  find  proper  bags,  will  send  it 
to  any  coach  or  van  or  wagon,  and  have  it  booked  at  my  expense  ; 
but  the  money  must  be  paid  at  my  shop  before  the  seed  be  sent  away  ; 
in  consideration  of  wliich  1  have  made  due  allowance  in  the  price. 
If  the  quantity  be  small,  any  friend  can  call  and  get  it  for  a  friend 
in  the  country;  if  the  quantity  be  large,  it  may  be  sent  by  me» 
The  plants  were  raised  from  seed  given  me  by  Mr.  Peppercorn 
(of  Southwell,  Bedfordshire),  in  1823.  He  gave  it  me  as  the  finest 
sort  thfit  he  had  ever  seen.  I  raised  some  plants  (for  use)  in  my 
garden  every  year;  but,  at  Barn-Elm  I  raised  a  whole  field  of  it, 
and  had  320  bushels  of  seed  upon  13  acres  of  land.  I  pledge  ray 
word,  that  there  was  not  one  single  turnip  in  the  whole  field  (which 
bore  seed)  not  of  the  true  kind.  There  was  but  one  of  a  suspicious 
look,  and  that  one  I  pulled  up  and  threw  away.  So  that  I  war- 
re w^  this  seed  as  being  perfectly  true,  and  as  having  proceeded 
fi;pm  plants  with  small  necks  and  greens,  and  with  tliat  reddish 
tinge  round  the  collar  which  is  the  sure  sign  of  the  best  sort. 

MANGEL-WURZEL  SEEP. 

Any  quantity  under  lOlbs.,  7^d.  a  pound;  any  quantity  above 
lOlbs.  and  under  SOlbs.,  7d»  a  pound;  any  quantity  above  50lbs,, 
6§<?.  a  pound  ;  any  quantity  abore  lOOlbs.,  6d.  a  pound.  The  sell- 
ing at  the  same  place  as  above;  the  payment  in  the  same  manner. 
This  seed  was  also  grown  at  Barn-Elm  farm  the  summer  before 
the  last.  It  is  a  seed  which  is  just  as  good  at  ten  years  old  as  at 
one. — The  plants  were  raised  in  seed-beds  in  1828 ;  they  were  se- 
lected, and  those  of  the  deepest  red  planted  out  in  a  field  of  13 
acres,  which  was  admired  by  all  who  saw  it,  as  a  most  even,  true, 
and  beautiful  field  of  the  kind.  The  crop  was  very  large,  and  out 
of  it  were  again  selected  the  plants  from  which  my  present  stock  of 
seed  was  growed  ;  though,  indeed,  there  was  little  room  for  selec- 
tion, where  all  were  so  good  and  true.    I  got  my  seed  from  Mr, 


240  COBBETT'CORN    FlOUR. 

PvM,  of  Rei^ate,  who  raised  it  from  plants  proceeding  from  seed 
that  1  had  given  him,  which  seed  I  had  raised  at  Worth,  in  Sussex, 
and,  all  the  way  through,  the  greatest  care  had  heen  taken  to  raise 
seed  from  no  plant  of  a  dubious  character.  This  seed,  therefore,  1 
warrant  as  the  very  best  of  the  kind.  A  score  or  two  of  persons, 
who  sowed  of  this  seed  last  year,  have  given  me  an  account  of  the 
large  crops  they  have  had  from  it,  and  have  all  borne  testimony  to 
its  being  the  truest  seed  they  ever  saw  of  the  kind.  1  sell  these 
seeds  much  cheaper  than  true  seed,  of  the  same  sorts,  can  be  got  at 
any  other  place  ;  but  I  have  a  right  to  do  this,  and  I  choose  to 
exercise  my  right.  My  seeds  are  kept  with  great  care  in  a  proper 
place  ;  and  I  not  only  warrant  the  sort,  but  also  that  every  seed 
grow,  if  properly  put  into  the  ground, 

USES  OF  COBBETT-CORN  FLOUR. 

We  use  the  corn-flour  in  my  family,  first,  as  bread,  two -thirds 
wheaten  and  one-third  corn-flour;  second,  in  batter  puddings 
baked,  a  pound  of  flour,  a  quart  of  water,  two  eggs,  though  these 
last  are  not  necessary  ;  third,  in  plum-puddings,  a  pound  of  flour, 
a^pint  of  water,  half  a  pound  of  suet,  the  plums  and  no  eggs  ; 
FOURTH,  in  plain  suet-puddings,  arnd  the  same  way,  omitting  the 
plums  ;  FIFTH,  in  little  round  dumplings ,  wiih  suet  or  without,  and 
though  they  are  apt  to  break,  they  are  very  good  in  this  way ;  in 
broth,  to  thicken  it,  for  which  use  it  is  beyond  all  measure  better 
than  wheaten-flour. 

I  sell  the  corn  according  to  the  following  table  :— 
If  planted  in  rows  3  feet  apart,  and  the  plants  8  inches  in  the  row, 

PRICE. 

1   Ear  will  plant  nearly  Tvvo  RODS.. £0     0     3^ 

1   Bunch  will  plant  more  than  ShVEN  RODS 0     10 

6  Bunches  will  plant  more  than  40  rods,  or  a  quarter 

of  an  acre •• 0     5     6 

12  Bunches  will  plant  more  than  80  rods,  or  half  an  acre     0  10     6 
25  Bunches  will  plant  more  than  100  rods,  or  an  acre     10     0 


Printeflljy  Wm.  Cobbett,Johnson's-court, Fleet-street. 


No.  11.  Vol.  II. 

COBBETT'S 

TWO-PENNY   TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  June,  1832. 


Published  monthly,  sold  at  \2s,  a  hundred,  and  for  300,  tahen  at 

once,  lis, 

TO    THE 

ELECTORS  UNDER  THE  REFORM  BILL. 

On  the  caution  which  they  will  now  have  to  exercise,  and 
on  the  duties  which  they  will  have  to  perform. 


Kensington,  \st  Jane,  1832. 
My  Friends, 

Owing  to  our  own  exertions,  and  to  nothing  else,  we 
shall  now  have  this  Reform  Bill  ;  and  it  becomes  us 
to  consider  what  use  we  shall  make  of  it ;  for  the  mere 
name  of  reform  will  do  us  no  good  at  all.  I  trust  that  we 
shall  now  cease  to  be  amused  with  shadows,  and  that  we 
shall  be  satisfied^with  nothing  but  ih^  substance.  We  want 
.  the  reform,  and  we  have  always  wanted  it,  to  make  us  bet^ 
ter  off  than  we  have  been,  and  than  we  are.  Our  earnings 
have  been  taken  away  from  us  unjustly ;  we  have  been  made 
poor  and  miserable  by  this ;  the  most  unfortunate  of  us  have 

been  reduced  to  take,  by  force  or  by  stealth,  the  goods  of 
our  neighbours,  or  to  starve ;  new  jails,  new  poor-houses, 

new  mad-houses,  fill  and  disgrace  our  country ;   oflfences 
against  the  law  have  [increased  a  hundredfold  ;  those  who 

have  property   dare  not  go  to  sleep,  lest  they  should  have 

it  taken  from  them,  or  have  it  destroyed.     We  ascribe  these 

London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street, 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 
M 


242  Two-penny  Trash; 

evils  to  the  burdens  laid  upon  us ;  or,  in  otlier  words,  to  our 
earnings  being  taken  away  from  us,  and  given  to  those 
who  give  us  nothing,  and  who  render  us  no  service,  in  re- 
turn. When  a  man  is  robbed  by  a  highwayman,  or  a  house- 
breaker, he  clearly  sees  that  the  property  taken  from  him  ia 
a  clear  loss;  and,  my  friends,  no  matter  how  the  fruits  of 
our  industry  be  taken  from  us ;  no  matter  as  to  the  manner 
of  doing  this  ;  no  matter  by  whom  the  act  of  taking  away  is 
performed,  the  effect  is  the  same;  the  thing  taken  aw^ay  is 
a  clear  loss,  if  there  be  not  something  given,  or  something 
done,  in  return.  This,  then,  is  what  we  complain  of.  Our 
grievances  are  not  fanciful  and  theoretical,  but  real  and 
practical.  We  complain  that  our  earnings  are  unjustly 
taken  from  us  ;  and  w^e  always  have  ascribed,  and  now  do 
ascribe,  this  to  our  not  being  represented  in  Parliament;  to 
our  having  been  robbed  of  the  right  of  choosing  those  who 
impose  taxes,  and  who  dispose  of  the  maney  taken  from  us 
in  taxes.     This  has  been,  and  is,  our  grievance. 

The  Reform  Bill,  to  redress  this  grievance  completely, 
ought  to  secure  the  right  of  voting  to  every  man  of  sane 
mijid,  and  unstained  by  infamous  crime;  but,  for  har- 
mony's sake,  we  have,  as  the  Manchester  meeting  in  their 
address  to  the  King  say,  *'  agreed  to  try  the  effect  of  a  more 
limited  suffrage;  and,  for  the  present,  to  forego  a  part  of 
this  our  undoubted  right."  But,  my  friends,  in  order  that 
this  Reform  Bill  may  be  of  real  use  to  us ;  in  order  that  it 
may  be  the  means  of  removing  our  poverty  and  misery,  and 
delivering  our  country  from  this  mass  of  crime  and  disgrace, 
we  must  take  care  to  choose  trusty  and  able  men  to  repre- 
sent us;  and  we  must  take  care  not  to  be  cheated  by  in- 
triguers, who,  under  the  garb  of  patriotism,  will  endeavour 
to  make  us  the  tools  of  one  or  the  other  of  the  factions ;  and 
thus  expose  us  to  be  plundered  as  mercilessly  as  we  have 
been  heretofore. 


IstJuke,  1832.  24a 

I  have  to  address  you,  first,  on  the  recent  proceedings 
relative  to  the  Reform  Bill;  second,  on  the  arts vrhich  will 
be  made  use  of  to  cheat  us  out  of  all  the  good  that  a  reform 
ought  to  produce  us;  third,  on  the  measures  which  we 
want  to  have  adopted  ;  and,  fourth,  on  the  sort  of  men 
who  ought  to  be  chosen,  and  on  the  p/erf^^s  which  they^ 
oiight  to  give  before  they  be  chosen. 

I.  On  the  recent  proceedings  relative  to  the  Reform  BilL 

-    On  the  conduct  of  the  Lord  s,  of  the  King,  of  the  Minis- 
ters and  their  supporters,  of  Wellington  and  his  sup- 
porters ;  of  all  these  you  have  been  pretty  w^ell  informed, 
in  one  way  or  another,  through  the  channel  of  the  news- 
papers;   but,   in  order   not   to    be    cheated,  you  ought  to 
be  cautioned  against  giving  way  to  praises  bestowed  upon 
any  body.     We  shall  have  the  Reform  Bill ;  and  we  shall 
have  it  solely  by  our  own  exertions  :  we  shall  owe  it  to  no-^ 
body  but  ourselves;  and  we  never  ought  to  forget  how  much 
we  owe  to  the  country  labourers,  and  particularly  to  those  of 
them  who  first  resolved  to  live  upon  potatoes  no  longer.. 
Those  who  live  upon  the  taxes  and  the  tithes  are  never  will- 
ing to  allow  that  the  people  have  any  merit  at  all ;  and 
though  it  is  now  ervident  to  every  one  that  it  is  the  people 
themselves  who  have  made  the  Reform  Bill  pass,  the  great- 
est possible  exertions  are  making  to  cause  us  to  believe  that 
we  shall  owe  that  bill  entirely  to  the  good -will,  talents,  and 
exertions  of  the  Ministers  and  of  their  political  party,  which 
are   commonly    called    the    Whigs.     Now,    my  friends, 
nothing  can  be  more  false  than  this  :  it  is  a  lie  as  impudent 
as  ever  issued  from  lips,  or  was  ever  put  upon  paper.     The 
whole  of  the  Ministry  themselves,  with  the  exception  of  my 
Lords  Grey  and  Holland,  have   either  been  the  most 
bitter  enemies  of  parliamentary  reform  all  their  lives,  which 
is-the  case  with  Pa lmerston,  Goderich,  Melbourne, 

M  2 


244  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

Grant,  Graham,  and  Aucland;  or  who  expressly 
abandoned  the  cause  of  reform  in  1827,  and  joined  Can- 
ning, who  had  always  been  the  reviler  of  that  cause,  and 
the  persecutor  of  all  reformers  ;  and  who,  at  the  very  time 
when  they  joined  him,  and  when  he  was  prime  minister,  de- 
clared that  he  would  oppose  reform,  in  every  shape  and 
degree,  to  the  last  hour  of  his  life ;  and  this  is  the  ease 
with  Brougham,  Lord  John  Russell,  Lord  Althorp, 
little  HoBHOUSE,  and  some  of  the  rest  of  them. 

How,  then,  can  you  believe  that  these  men  were  ever  sin- 
cere in  their  wishes  for  a  real  reform  of  the  Parliament  ? 
The  facts  are  these  ;  that  the  cause  of  parliam.entary  reform 
had  been  a  great  cause  in  England  from  about  the  year 
3770;  that  the  late  Major  Cartwright  was  the  great 
champion  of  that  cause  from  its  beginning  till  the  day  of 
his  death,  which  took  place  a  few  years  ago ;  that  I,  con- 
verted to  the  cause  by  Major  Cartwright,  espoused  it 
with  all  my  might  in  the  year  1806  ;  that  the  reformers  were 
persecuted,  and  I  more  than  any  of  the  rest,  until  the  pre- 
sent Reform  Bill  was  brought  in  ;  that,  in  the  year  1830, 
including  the  month  of  December  1829,   I  went  in  person 
into  three-fourths  of  the  counties  of  England,  and  delivered 
lectures,  urging  the  people  to  demand  a  reform  of  the  Par- 
liament ;  that,  when  the  Parliament  met  in  the  month  of 
October  1830,  the  demand  for  reform  was  general  through- 
out the  country ;  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  who  was 
then  prime  minister,  declared,  in  the  most  positive  and  most 
insolent  manner,  that  there  should  be  no  reform  as  long  as 
he  was^in  power ;  that  the  people  were  so  enraged  at  this 
that  he  could  neither  walk  nor  ride  the  streets  wuth  safety; 
that  Lord  Grey  then  took  the  place  of  Wellington,  pro- 
mising the  nation  that  he  would  make  a  reform  of  the  Par- 
.liament.     It  is,  therefore,  clear  as  daylight,  that  the  reform 
varose  out  of  the  will  and  resolution  of  the  people ;  and  that 


1st  June,  1832.  ,245 

Lord  Grey  could  not  have  kept  his  place  any  more  than 
Wellington  had  done,  if  it  had  not  been  for  his  promise 
to  make  a  reform  of  the  Parliament. 

It  is  equally  clear  that  the  Ministry  entered  upon  the 
work  of  reform  with  extreme  reluctance.     They  put  the 
work  off,  in  a  most  unaccountable  manner,  from  thejirst 
week  in  November  1830,  to  thejirst  day  in  March  1831 5 
and,  from  the  statements  of  several  of  them,  it  was  made 
very  clear  that  they  had  done  what  they  had  done  grudg- 
ingly; and  that  they  had  been  unable  to  bring  themselves 
to  grant    that   which  they  had  granted,  until  a  very  few 
days  (not   more  than  three)  before   the  bill  was  actually 
brought  in.     To  show  with  what  ill-will  they  made  this 
reform,  you  have  to  look  at  their  prosecution  of  me,  which 
they  commenced,  or  rather  determined  upon,  about  a  month 
before  the  bill  was  brought  in.     You  know  that  they  failed 
in  the  prosecution ;  you  know  that  I  beat  them  and  put 
them  to  shame ;  the  whole  nation  cried  aloud  against  them 
for  this,  for  no  man  believed  that  I  had  committed  any 
offence  at  all.     What,  then,  was  the  motive  to  this  prose- 
cution ?     The  motive  was  this :  they  knew  that  I  had  more 
weight  with  the  people  than  any  other  man ;  they  knew  that 
I  had  the  power  of  exposing  their  insincerity ;  they  knew 
that  they  could  not  deceive  me ;  they  feared  that  I  should 
defeat  any  attempt  of  theirs  to  deceive  the  people ;  they 
thought  that  I  should  oppose  the  limitation  of  the  suffrage 
which  they  intended  to  make ;  and  that  I  should  defeat 
their  bill,  and  cause  them  to  experience  peril  for  their  places. 
They,  therefore,  fell  upon  the  plan  of  silencing  me  by  th^ 
means  of  this  infamous  prosecution.     The  moment  they 
commenced  it,   I  hurled  defiance  in  their  teeth.     When 
their  bill  appeared,  I  received  it  and  supported  it,  because 
it  was  something  gained  at  any  rate :  it  restored  us  to  a  part 
of  our  rights;  and   a  part  was  better  than  none.     They 


4^46  Two-penny  Trash; 

would  now  have  gladly  dropped  their  prosecution,  if  they 
could  have  done  it  with  any  degree  of  credit;  but  while  I 
supported  their  bill,  I  continued  to  lay  the  lash  upon  them, 
and  to  challenge  them  to  come  and  meet  me  in  the  Court 
of  King's  Bench,  into  which  I  at  last  dragged  them  by  force, 
and  there  lashed  them,  before  the  face  of  the  whole  country, 
like  so  many  guilty  sheep- biting  dogs! 

This  prosecution  showed  their  inherent  hatred  of  reform 
as  clearly  as  setting  fire  to  a  farmer*s  stacks  shows  a  hatred 
to  the  farmer.  The  French  newspaper-writers  expressed 
their  utter  astonishment  that  a  reforming  Ministry  should 
commence  such  a  groundless  prosecution  against  the  great 
champion  of  the  cause  of -reform  !  I  told  the  Parlez-votis 
that  they  did  not  understand  the  matter;  that  reform  wafi 
a  lady ;  that  she  was  in  the  family-way  by  the  Minister^, 
and  that  I  had  furnished  a  halter  for  leading  the  loving 
couple  to  church  !  It  was  precisely  thus  ;  and  their  feelings 
towards  me  were  much  about  the  same  as  those  which  a 
premature  papa  entertains  towards  the  parish  officer,  who 
performs  the  pious  act  of  compelling  him,  on  pain  of  im- 
prisonment, to  take  the  mother  of  his  offspring  for  bett€ir 
for  worse. 

Thus,  then,  it  was  all  the  work  of  the  people  so  far.  Now 
for  the  rest.  When  the  first  Reform  Bill  was  under  dis- 
cussion in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  when  the  oppositicm 
Lords  had  expressed  their  determination  to  oppose  the  clause 
which  enabled  ten-pound  renters  to  vote,  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor Brou  GUAM  expressed  his  readiness  to  reconsider  that 
part  of  the  bil  1.  He  did  not  say  that  he  was  ready  to  give 
that  part  of  it  up;  but  it  is  quite  clear  that  he  wouW 
have  given  it  up  rather  than  lose  his  place ;  and,  observe. 
Earl  Grey  expressed  no  disapprobation  of  this  conduct  of 
his  colleague.  It  is  clear  that  the  Ministers  were  ready  to 
alter  that  clause  at  that  time;  but  the  Tories,  who  were 


1st  June,  1832.  247 

persuaded  by  a  FOOL-LIAR  whom  they  had  in  their  paijy 
that  there  was  a  •*  re-action^'  and  that  the  people  would 
be  quiet  though  the  hill  should  be  thrown  out;  the  Tories, 
thus  encouraged  by  this  FOOL-LIAR,  urged  the  noble 
peers  to  throw  out  the  bill  altogether.  They  did  throw  it 
out;  and  thus  the  Ministers  were  relieved,  for  that  time, 
from  their  disagreeable  job.  Bristol,  Nottingham, 
Derby,  every  town  and  village  in  which  an  opposition  lord 
showed  his  head,  soon  convinced  both  Tories  and  Whigs 
that  the  FOOL-LIAR  "  had  bin  a  deluden  ov  umJ'  The 
Ministers  fell  to  work,  to  dreadful  work,  upon  those  who 
had  insulted  Wetherell  and  the  Duke  of  Newcastle. 
To  punish  these  people  seemed  now  to  engage  their  minds 
and  hearts.  But  still  the  nation  called  iox  another  bill! 
and  a  bill  too  as  good  as  the  last,  at  the  least !  This  was 
very  troublesome.  Lord  Grey  was  out  of  humour.  We 
were  threatened  with  a  long  prorogation  of  Parliament;  but 
petitions,  addresses,  deputations,  political  unions,  speeches, 
and  penny-newspapers,  so  worried  him,  that,  after  a  suitable 
time  for  screwing  his  face,  as  if  about  to  take  physic,  he  got 
the  Parliament  together  and  brought  in  another  bill,  but, 
seemingly,  without  any  great  stomach  to  the  passing  of  it ; 
for  such  was  the  system  of  procrastination  now  resorted  to, 
that  the  bill,  which  was  brought  into  the  House  of  Commons 
on  the  12th  of  December,  did  not  get  out  of  it  until  the 
27th  of  March;  that  is  to  say,  116  days;  though  all  the 
matter  of  the  bill  had  been  fully  discussed  the  year  before, 
and  though,  in  1817,  a  bill  to  authorise  Castlereagii  and 
SiDMOUTir  to  shut  any  man  up  in  a  dungeon  at  their 
pleasure^  had  not  remained  in  the  same  house  more  than 
eight-and-forty  hours! 

Out  of  the  house,  however,  it  did  get  at  last ;  and  though 
the  time  seemed  so  long  to  everybody  else,  it  seemed  as 
short  to  the  Ministers  as  the  hours  do  to  a  man  that  is  going 


248  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

to  be  married  against  his  will;  or,  which  is  about  the  same 
thing,  is  about  to  have  his  neck  encircled  by  a  rope,  instead 
of  the  arms  of  a  disgusting  biide.  Nevertheless,  into  the 
House  of  Lords  the  poor  bill  gif,  the  people  watching  it  all 
the  while  as  a  coney- cut  watches  the  mouth  of  a  rabbit- 
burrow.  The  ten-pound  clause  was  still  the  burden  of 
open  complaint  with  the  Tories;  and,  as  was  evident  to 
every  one,  of  secret  hostility  with  the  Whigs.  At  the  close 
of  the  debate  on  the  second  reading,  Lord  Grey  said, 
'*  that  the  ten-pound  clause  was  no  fart  of  the  principle 
"  of  the  hill ;  that  it  might  be  altered  with  perfect  con- 
**  sistency  with  that  principle;  that  if  it  could  be  shown  that 
**  any  qualification,  not  so  small  as  ten  pounds,  would  be 
*'  less  open  to  fraud  and  abuse,  he  would  not  resist  the 
"  correction  of  such  circumstances ;  but  that  the  decision 
"  on  this  point  would  depend  on  the  House  and  not  on  him.** 
In  the  same  speech  he  said,  that,  **  let  the  decision  of  the 
'*  House  be  what  it  might,  he  ivould  keep  the  peace  of  the 
"  country y  If  these  words  had  a  meaning,  their  meaning 
was,  that  he  was  ready  to  give  up  the  ten-pound  clause,  and 
that  he  would  keep  the  people  quiet,  though  the  bill  should 
be  rejected  altogether.  In  the  meanwhile  precautions  had 
been  taken  by  the  Ministers  to  keep  the  Birmingham 
Union  quiet;  and,  it  was  thought  that  the  Birmingham 
Union  would  be  imitated  by  all  the  rest  of  the  nation; 
but,  according  to  the  old  rustic  saying,  "Thought  was 
in  bed  once,  and  thought  he  was  up  f  and  the  consequence 
was,  less  cleanly  perhaps,  but  not  less  ludicrous  than  it  was 
now.  For,  there  stood  the  Birmingham  Union,  gaping^ 
like  a  clown  at  a  puppet-show,  while  all  the  rest  of  the 
nation,  from  Glasgow  to  London,  was  sending  up  ad- 
dresses, petitions,  and  remonstrances,  breathing  nothing  but 
suspicion,  excited  by  the  speech  of  Grey,  calling  aloud  for 
the  whole  bill,  and  especially  the  ten-pound  clause.     There 


1st  June,  1832.  249 

was  an  extraordinarily  long  Easter  adjournment,  for  the 
manifest  purpose  of  giving  time  for  the  Birmingham 
soporific  to  work  ;  but  the  soporific  having  failed,  the  long^ 
adjournment  only  gave  time  for  an  accumulation  of  anger^ 
which  had  been  excited  by  the  suspicions  created  by  Grey's 
speech;  and,  when  the  Parliament  met  on  the  7th  of  May, 
he  was  compelled  to  begin  by  expressing  his  determination 
to  stand  or  fall  by  the  ten-jpound  clause!  This  produced 
Lyndhurst's  motion.  The  rest  is  known,  and  will  re- 
main recorded  in  the  hearts  of  our  children. 

II.   On  the  arts  which  will  be  made  use  of  to  cheat  us 
out  of  all  the  good  that  a  reform  ought  to  produce  us. 

We  have  seen  with  how  much  reluctance  the  bill  was 
brought  in  and  carried  along  by  the  Ministers :  by  watching 
and  fighting  like  vigilant  and  gallant  dogs,  we  shall  have  it ; 
and,  now,  the  last  resource  of  corruption  is  to  cause  it  to  be 
of  no  use  to  us  5  to  get  together  what  will  be  called  a  re- 
formed Parliament,  which  may  be  just  as  bad  as  any  that 
have  gone  before ;  and  which,  at  any  rate,  will  not  make 
any  material  alteration  of  the  system  under  which  we  have 
been  suffering  so  long,  and  that  will  call  it  "  revolutionary'^ 
to  propose  to  touch  pensions,  sinecures,  grants,  retired  allow- 
ances, dead-weight,  tithes,  crown  lands,  or  what  is  called 
national  debt.  If  we  were  to  submit  to  this ;  if  we  were 
stupid  and  base  enough  to  permit  a  thing  like  this  to  go  on, 
we  should  become  the  mockery  and  scorn  of  the  world. 
The  manner  in  which  it  will  be  attempted  to  effect  thist 
object,  to  practise  this  last  shift  of  corruption,  will  be  this: 
every  press  will  be  put  in  motion,  that  can  be  put  in  motion 
for  the  purpose,  to  cry  up  the  Ministry,  An  endeavour 
will  be  made  to  make  us  believe  that  we  owe  everything  t» 
the  Ministry,     When  the  bill  has  been  passed,  the  ruflSans 

M  5 


250  Two-penny  Tk^sh; 

who  live  upon  the  taxes,  and  those  who  want,  to  live  upo9 
the  taxes,  w^ill  be  calling  meetings  everywhere  to  send  up 
addresses  of  thanks  to  Lord  Grey  and  the  Ministry ;  and 
after  this,  it  will  be  very  ungrateful  in  us  to  complain  of 
this  excellent  Ministry  on  any  account;  and,  as  to  asking 
them  to  take  the  pensions  and  other  good  things  away  from 
their  relations  and  friends,  that  will  be  too  bad !  So  that 
Tve  shall  have  the  Reform  Bill  and  be  cheated  out  of  the 
fruit  of  it,  just  as  the  poor  fellows  in  France  have  been 
cheated  out  of  the  fruit  of  their  valour  and  theic  blood.  Be 
upon  your  guard,  therefore,  against  all  propositions  of  this 
sort ;  if  any  one  propose  an  address  of  thanks  to  the  Ministers, 
move  an  amenduient  to  address  the  political  union  nearest 
to  your  neighbourhood.  Indeed,  justice  would  point  out 
an  address  of  thanks  to  me;  for  I  have  done  more  in 
making  a  reform  than  any  other  thousand  men  in  England : 
it  was  I  who  detected  the  designs  of  Ministers,  and  who 
urged  the  people  on  to  compel  them  to  do  that  which  they 
have  done.  But  I  want  no  addresses;  I  want  no  flummery: 
I  want  to  see  the  people  act  with  resolution  and  with  sense, 
ajod  to  be,  as  the  natural  consequence  of  such  conduct,  free 
and  happy  as  their  fathers  were. 

Already  is  this  system  of  delusion  beginning  to  be  put  in 
practice:  and  (for  I  will  never  expressly  or  tacitly  aid  in 
deception)  my  opinion  decidedly  is,  that  the  Whig  faction 
mean  to  make  use  of  the  Birmingham  Poxitical  llNtON 
as  their  tool  in  getting  up  addresses  of  thanks  to  the  MU 
nisters,  and  in  wheedling  the  people  to  be  content  with 
sothing  but  the  mere  name  of  reform.  I  know  that  I  shall 
:giye  offence  by  thus  frankly  stating  my  opinion  5  but  the 
effects  of  that  offence  are  nothing,  when  compared  with  the 
probable  consequences  of  neglecting  my  duty.  To  those  who 
live  in  this  scene  of  political  intdgue,  and  who  are  attentive 
observers  of  occurrences,  those  of  the  last  fortnighlL  mu^ 


1st  June,  1832.  251 

have  been  sufficient  in  producing  in  their  minds  a  conviction 
of  the  correctness  of  this  my  opinion.  The  scenes  at  Guild- 
hall and  the.  Mansion- House;  the  dinings,  and  the  pre- 
senting of  the  freedom  to  Mr.  Attwood  ;  the  speechings  of 
our  Charley  and  of  my  cat's-meat  Lord  Mayor  :  these, 
to  us  who  live  in  the  hell  of  corruption,  would  be  more  than 
enough ;  but  to  those  of  my  readers  who  are  so  happy  as 
to  live  at  a  distance  from  it,  it  may  be  necessary  to  be  a 
little  more  particular,  beginning  with  noticing  an  address, 
put  forth  on  the  15th  of  May,  by  the  council  of  the  Bir- 
mingham Political  Union. 

I  have  just  been  observing,  that  the  grand  scheme  is  to 
prevail  upon  the  people  to  praise  the  Whig  Ministry ;  to 
make  them  believe,  that  the  very  breath  in  iheir  nostrils  de- 
pends upon  the  permanent  possession  of  power  by  that 
Ministry,  and  the  permanent  predominance  of  the  Whig 
faction.  If  we  once  adopt  this  notion.  Lord  Grey  will  be 
our  Louis  Philippe,  and  we  shall  be  cheated  as  com- 
pletely as  the  French  have  been.  The  Birmingham 
Council  is,  as  I  said  before,  intended  to  be  the  instrument 
in  the  execution  of  this  scheme  ;  and,  it  appears  to  me  to 
have  begun  its  operations  in  this  way,  by'  calling  upon  the 
nation  to  sign  a  declaration  against  Wellington, 
and  in  favour  of  the  Ministers.  This  declaration  was 
agreed  to  by  the  Council  on  the  14th  May;  and,  on  the 
15th  it  was  resolved  to  send  it  ofif  to  all  the  great  towns  and 
districts  in  the  kingdom,  in  order  that  signatures  to  it 
might  be  obtained.  It  was  sent  inclosed  in  a  circular  letter 
addressed  to  individuals,  and  that  circular  together  with  the 
inclosure  was  sent  to  me.  My  answer  to  the  circular  con- 
tains my  objection  to  affix  to  it  my  signature  ;  and  this  an- 
swer I  have  sent  to  the  secretary,  in  the  following  words  : 


^^2  Two-PENXY  Trash; 

To  Mr.  Benjamin  Hadley,  Hon.  Sec.  to  the  Bir- 
»       MiNGHAM  Political  Union. 

Godalming,  May  24thf  1832. 
Sir, — I  have  received  from  you  a  circular  letter  inclosing 
a  "Solemn  Declaration''  of  the  Council  of  the  Bir- 
mingham Political  Union,  which  documents  I  will  here 
copy,  and  then  subjoin  to  them  that  answer  which  I  think 
it  is  my  duty  to  give  to  your  application. 

Birmitighanit  Map  15,  1832. — I  am  instructed  by  the  Council  of 
the  Birmingham  Political  Union  to  request  that  you  will  do  thena 
the  honour  to  allow  your  7iame  to  he  affixed  to  the  Solemn  Declara- 
tion (of  which  the  incIo«ed  is  a  copy),  which  we  have  just  adopted 
and  sij^ned,  respecting  the  public  conduct  of  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton, and  his  unfitness  to  he  f)laced  at  the  head  of  the  executive 
government  of  a  free  people.  I  have  the  honour  to  be,  your  most 
obedient  servant,  Benjamin  Hadley,  Hob.  Sec. 

to  the  Birmingham  Political  Unioiu 

SOLEMN  DECLARATION. 

Birmingham y  May  14,  1832. 

WE,  the  undersigned,  think  it  necessary,  in  this  awful  crisis  of 
our  country's  fate,  to  make  known  to  our  fellow-countrymen  the 
alarm  and  horror  with  which  we  are  impressed  by  the  report  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington's  having  been  placed  at  the  head  of  his  Ma- 
jesty's councils.  We  entertain  this  alarm  and  horror  on  the  fol- 
lowing grounds : — First,  The  Duke  of  Wellington's  general 
aTOwai  of  arbitrary  principles.— «Stfcow<?.  His  speech  against  ALL 
REFORM,  made  only  about  a  year  and  a  half  ago. — 7%trrf.  His 
protest  against  the  Reform  Bill,  as  entered  on  the  journals  of 
the  House  of  Lords,  on  the  17th  of  April  last. — Fourth,  Hig 
reported  expressions  in  the  late  Parliament,  amounting  to  those 
of  regret,  that  the  Irish  people  **  WOULD  NOT"  break  the  law. 
— Fifth,  His  being  a  pensioner  of  Foreign  Despots ;  and  as  such, 
exposed  to  their  influence,  and  unfit  to  govern  a  free  people. 
— Sixth,  Hie  conduct  to  Marshal  Ney,  who  was  murdered  by  the 
Bourbon  Government,  in  violation  of  the  convention  of  Paris,  not- 
\vithstanding  his  appeal  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  who  b^d 
signed  that  convention. —  Seventh,  His  general  support  of  arbitrary 
power  on  the  coutinent  of  Europe,  and  the  certainty  that  his  policy, 
if  be  be  true  to  his  principles,  will  necessarily  involve  the  nation  ia 
unjust  and  ruinous  wars  against  the  liberties  of  Europe. — Eighths 
His  utter  incompetency  to  govern  England  by  any  other  means 
than  by  the  sword,  which  has  never  yet  been,  and  never  will  be, 
submitted  to  by  the  British  people. 

For  these  and  various  other  reasons,  we  hereby  solemnly  declare 


1st  May,  1832.  253 

our  fixed  determination  to  use  all  the  means  which  the  constitutioD 
and  the  law  have  placed  at  our  disposal,  to  induce  his  Majesty  to 
reject  from  his  councils  that  faction y  at  the  head  of  which  is  thfe 
Puke  of  Wellington,  who  have  by  their  arbitrary  principles  ex- 
cited the  distrust  and  abhorrence  of  the  whole  population  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  and  we  declare  our  firm  conviction  that  the 
public  excitement  and  agitation  can  never  be  allayed  until  the  great 
Bill  of  Reform  shall  be  carried  into  law  hy  that  administration^  by 
whose  wisdom  and  virtue  it  was  first  introduced.  These  are  our 
fixed  and  unalterable  sentiments,  and  we  hereby  appeal  to  all  our 
fellow-couutr^'men,  throughout  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  and 
we  confidently  call  on  them  to  unite  with  us  and  sign  this  our 
solem  declaration^  in  support  of  the  liberty  and  happiness  of  our 
country. 

At  all  times  disposed,  not  only  to  do  ample  justice  to  the 
motives  of  the  Council,  but  also  to  express  my  gratitud* 
to  its  members  for  the  good  which  they  have  done,  it  would 
have  given  me  great  pleasure  to  put  my  name  to  a  document 
which  they  have  thought  worthy  of  being  promulgated  by 
them ;  and  as  I  have  insurmountable  objections  to  the 
signing  of  this  declaration,  it  becomes  me  to  state  them  to 
you  with  that  frankness  without  which  intercommunication 
of  this  kind,  while  it  must  produce  uneasiness  in  the  parties 
themselves,  never  can  lead  to  any  beneficial  result. 

I  do  not  like  vague  and  general  charges,  even  when  pre- 
ferred against  the  devil  himself;  and,  therefore,  I  object 
altogether  to  iYieJirst  and  seventh  of  the  grounds  alleged  in 
this  declaration.  The  fourth,  Jifth,  and  eighth,  relate  to 
points  of  fact,  of  the  truth  of  which  I  possess  no  proof,  and 
am,  by  you,  furnished  with  no  proof.  On  account  of  the 
second  and  third  grounds,  I  most  cordially  detest  the  Duke  ; 
on  account  of  the  sixth,  I  have  expressed  my  detestation  of 
him  from  the  date  of  the  killing  of  Ney  to  the  present  hour. 
Either  of  these  grounds  would  be  much  more  than  sufficient 
to  make  me  use  my  utmost  efforts  to  prevent  this  man  from 
possessing  power  in  the  country  of  my  birth  ;  though,  at  the 
«ame  timCj  I  think  that  we  should  do  him  much  too  great  an 


254  Two- PEiTxNy  Trash  ; 

honour  by  any  proceeding  so  general  and  so  solemn  as  that 
i^ich  is  here  proposed  by  the  CounciL 

But,  Sir,  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  my  strongest  objection 
still  remains  to  be  stated;  namely,  that  by  signing  the  decla- 
ration I  should  solemnly  declare  it  to  be  my  opinion  that  the 
present  administration  not  only  have  wisdom  and  virtue^ 
but  that  the  continuation  of  their  sway  is  necessary  to  the 
liberty  and  happiness  of  our  country  ;  an  opinion  which  I 
do  not  entertain,  and  which  I  should  blush  to  express. 

In  the  eighth  ground  alleged  against  the  Duke,  it  is  as- 
serted that  he  is  incompetent  to  govern  England  by  any 
other  means  than  by  the  sword ;  but,  in  making  this  allega- 
tion, I  am  surprised  that  the  Council  did  not  recollect, 
that  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  present  Ministers  was  to  aug- 
ment the  standing  army  left  them  by  the  Duke  ;  and  that 
they  have  more  recently  literally  put  swords  into  the  hands 
of  that  police  which  he  left  without  swords.     I  would  fain 
bury  in  oblivion   Hampshire,  Wiltshire,  and   Berk- 
shire, Bristol  and  Nottingham  ;  but  if  I  could  for- 
get poor  Cook  of  Micheldever,  the  two  Masons  of 
Bullington,  the  seventy- three  husbandless  wives,  and  the 
hundreds  of  fatherless  children  and  broken-hearted  parents 
in  that  county  which  I  know  so  w^U,  and  which  is  dear  to 
me  from  so  many  causes ;  if  I  could  forget  all  these  ;  if  I 
could  blot  all  these  from  my  recollection,  I  cannot  forget 
what  this  same  wise  and  virtuous  Ministry,  whom  you  call 
on  me  to  support  against  **  a  faction,  at  the  head  of  which 
is  the  Duke  ;  '*  I  cannot  forget  that  this  same  Ministry,  the 
existence  of  whose  sway  you  identify  with  the  liberty  and 
happiness  of  England,  still  make  this  very  Duke  lord-lieu- 
tenant of  that  county;   aye,   and  that  they  made  him  a 
judge,  to  sic  on  the  bench  in  that  special  commission  by 
whom  poor  Cook  was  condemned  to  the  gallows,  and  whose 


1st  June,  1832.  255 

awful,  though  legal,  judgments  filled  that  unhappy  county 
with  mourning;  made  it  re-echo  with  the  screamings  of 
mothers^  wives,  and  children. 

Such,  Sir,  are  my  reasons  for  refusing  to  sign  this  decla- 
ration.  While  I  impute  no  blame  to  those  by  whose  direc- 
tion it  has  been  sent  to  me,  they  will,  I  trust,  find  no  grounds 
of  blame  in  this  refusal  on  the  part  of, 

Sir, 
Your  most  humble  and  most  obedient  servant, 

Wm.  COBBETT. 

Every  one  must  see  that  the  real  object  of  this  solemn  de* 
claration  was  to  get  the  people  to  pledge  themselves  to  sup^ 
port  the  Whiff  Ministi^y  against  the  Duke,  With  exactly 
the  same  view  the  Birmingham  deputation  has  been  ca» 
joled  and  caressed  and  feasted  and  freedomed  by  the  Cor- 
poration of  London.  The  name  of  London  is  great.  The 
recollection  of  the  famous  men  who  have,  at  different  times> 
belonged  to  its  corporation,  is  always  alive  in  our  minds*  The 
title  of  Lord  Mayor ^  and  that  of  Common  Council^  are  what 
they  always  were :  those,  therefore,  who  live  at  a  distance 
from  the  scene  can  hardly  believe  it  possible  that  the  thing s, 
represented  by  the  same  words,  are  not  still  the  same  sort  of 
things.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  now  that  we  are  goii^g  to 
speak  of  the  part  that  this  Corporation  has  acted  in  i\m 
grand  scheme  of  delusion,  to  say  a  little  what  the  things  really 
now  are.  The  Lord  Mayor,  Aldermen,  and  Common  Coun- 
cil of  Loadon  have  the  fingeriog  of  the  City  funds^  partly 
consisting  of  the  revenue  of  estates,  and  partly  of  the  enor- 
mous taxes  of  various  kinds  which  the  boroughmonger  Par* 
liaments  have  enabled  them  to  lay  upon  us*  With  these 
funds  they  have  proceeded  in  much  about  the  same  way  that 
the  boFougbmoiiger  Parliaments  have  proceeded  with  t^e 
funds  of  tbe  nat&n.     They  have  coatraeted  a  debt  greater 


256  Two-penny  Trash; 

than  ever  can  be  paid  ;  they  have  their  pension,  sinecure^ 
retired-allowance,  and  dead-weight,  lists:  they  vote  money 
to  each  other  to  defray  the  expenses  of  their  summer  excuv" 
sions.  A  few  years  ago  they  spent  six  hundred  pounds 
on  a  water  party  up  the  Thames  to  Oxford  j  and,  in 
that  same  year,  they  gave  one  hundred  pounds  to  all 
the  widows  of  freemen  in  the  city.  They  have  lately 
established  a  Bourbon-like  police.  As  an  instance  of 
their  fiscal  oppressions,  they  made  me  pay  nearly  thirty 
pounds  in  order  to  be  permitted  to  keep  a  shop  in  the  City ; 
and,  it  being  their  duty  to  furnish  bread  to  the  prisoners  ia 
Newgate,  they  were  so  much  in  arrear  to  the  baker  that  he 
refused  to  send  any  more  bread  without  the  money,  when, 
at  that  very  time,  they  expended  nearly  thirty  thousand 
pounds  of  our  money,  in  a  feast  given  to  this  very  Wel- 
lington and  the  Holy  Allies ;  aye,  to  this  very  Welling- 
ton, against  whom  this  Birmingham  Council  now  calls  upon 
the  nation  to  sign  a  solemn  declaration  !  Their  fiscal  ex- 
actions, for  which  they  obtain  Acts  of  Parliament,  are  ab- 
solutely without  end.  What  I  pay  to  the  Government  is  a 
trifle  compared  with  what  they  compel  me  to  pay.  1  now 
have  demanded  of  me  enormous  rates  for  an  old  church 
(which  has  been  pulled  down),  and  rates  equally  epormous 
for  a  new  church,  which  is  not  yet  built  j  so  that  I  have  two 
church-rates  to  pay,  and  no  church  to  go  to.  And  this  is 
the  body  of  persons,  to  receive  the  ^^  freedom  "  from  whom 
Mr.  Attwood  says,  he  thinks  it  is  an  honour  !  I,  then,  had, 
like  Malvolio  in  the  play,  "honour  thrusted  upon  me;'' 
for  these  fellows  made  me  pay  them  thirty  pounds  in  order 
to  be  permitted  to  keep  a  shop ;  and  this  money  it  is  no- 
torious that  they  divide  amongst  them.  With  regard  to 
their  political  principles,  their  attachment  to  the  rights  of 
the  people,  what  need  have  we  of  any  thing  more  than 
their  monstrous  conduct  with  regard  to  Mr.  Scales  and 


1st  June,  1832.  257 

the  people  of  Portsoken  Ward?  By  the  laws  and 
usages  of  the  City,  the  Alderman  of  a  ward  is  to  be 
elected  by  the  people  of  the  ward  ;  that  is  to  say,  by  the  free- 
men of  the  ward.  Mr,  Scales  was  so  elected  by  a  vast 
majority;  but  the  Aldermen  would  not  admit  him,  but 
took  a  man  who  had  got  only  a  few  votes,  and  the  crew  of 
Common  Council  approved  of  what  the  Aldermen  had 
done;  and  there  are  the  people  of  Portsoken  Ward  re- 
presented by  a  man  whom  they  have  not  chosen,  while  this 
brazen  corporation  has  the  audacity  to  rail  against  rotten- 
boroughs,  and  to  present  the  freedom  of  the  City  to  Mr. 
Attwood,  upon  the  ground  of  his  being  a  ''  distinguished 
reformer  ;^  and  there  is  Mr.  Attwood  with  folly  or  mean- 
ness sufficient  to  induce  him  to  receive  the  "  honour "  at 
their  hands  !  As  if  it  had  been  resolved,  that  nothing 
should  be  wanting  to  make  the  thing  complete, 
"Charley"  was  chosen  to  make  the  motion  for  confer- 
ing  the  honour,  and  the  motion  was  seconded  by  Fig  gins, 
the  printers' 'linker.  The  report  tells  us,  that  Mr»  Attwood 
said,  upon  this  occasion,  that,  **  Though  he  could  meet 
danger  unmoved,  he  never  had  his  nerves  so  much  shaken 
as  they  had  been  at  receiving  the  freedom  of  the  City  !'* 
Faith ;  it  might  well  shake  his  nerves,  when  he  saw 
Charley  and  Figgins  stand  before  him;  and  especially 
when  he  considered  that  he  was  about  to  receive  something 
that  they  had  touched  :  the  very  thought  of  it  makes  my 
nerves  shake ;  and  I  will  bet  Mr.  Attwood  just  what  he 
likes,  that  he  does  not  find,  between  Temple-bar  and 
BisiiopsGA TE,  one  single  shopkeeper  who  would  not  run 
like  a  scalded  cat  and  hide  himself  under  his  counter,  if 
he  were  in  danger  of  being  exposed  to  endure  what  Mr, 
Attwood  deemed  such  an  honour. 

The  thing  for  us  to  observe  is,  however,   that  this  is  a 
crew  of  hangers-on  of  the   Ministry.     They  depend  upon 


'258  Two-penny  Trash; 

the  breath  of  every  Ministry ;  for,  if  they  were  to  displease 
the  Ministry,  there  would  soon  be  an  end  of  their  power  of 
taxing  us,  and  of  their  making  of  loans.    If  Wellington 
had  remained  in  for  a  fortnight,  they  would  have  been  on  his 
side.     Of  every  thing  that  is  disgusting  we  had  a  specimen 
upon  this  occasion.     Two  of  the   deputies  from  Man- 
chester appear  to  have  crept  into  the  society  of  Charley 
and  the  Lord  Mayor,  under  the  skirts  of  the  grand  depu- 
tation from  Birmingham.     One  of  those  deputies  (Mr. 
John    Fielden)  returned  home  immediately,  as  soon  as 
the  duties  of  his  mission  had   been  performed.     Whether 
Mr.  Shuttle  WORT  II  were  present  at  this  '*  feast  of  rea- 
son," I  do  not  know ;  but  our  prime  Lord  Mayor,  in  toasting 
thereformers  of  Manchester,  put  Mr.  Richard  Potter 
at  their  head,  recollecting,  perhaps,  that  "  Dick  was  elo" 
quenter.^*  This  was  of  a  piece  with  all  the  rest ;  for  this  Mr. 
Potter  is  no  more  at  the  head  of  the  reformers  at  Man- 
chester than  Charley  is  at  the  head  of  the  reformers 
in  London.     All  was  false  from  the  beginning  to  the  end ; 
all  a  ministerial  trick,  played  oflf  by  their  several  sets  of 
tools.     A  trick,  however,  which  would  have  been  wholly  un- 
worthy of  all  this  notice  from  me,  were  it  not  calculated  as 
well  as  intended  to  deceive  the  people  at  large,  and  to  make 
them  submit  in  silence,  while  they  were  cheated  out  of  the 
fruits  of  reform.     I  am  not  bound  to  endeavour  to  unde- 
ceive any  body  but  my  own  readers.     To  undeceive  them 
was  my  duty ;  and  from  a  sense  of  that  duty  I   have  be- 
stowed these  remarks  upon  the  conduct  of  persons,  the  far 
greater   part   of  whom    I   should   otherwise  have    deemed 
wholly  unworthy  of  attention. 

in.   On  the  measures  which  we  want  to  have  adopted. 

We  want  so  many  things,  that  a  particular  descriptioa  of 
each  would  fill  a  volume  ;  but  the   substance  may  be  de- 


1st  June,  1832.  259 

scribed  in  four  words:  cheap  government  and  cheap 
RELIGION.  These  are  what  we  want;  and  these  we  will 
have,  in  spite  of  the  Whigs  and  the  city -jobbers.  In  order 
to  have  these,  the  taxes  and  the  tithes  must  be  taken  off: 
all  the  latter  and  a  very  large  part  of  the  former.  In  short 
all  the  internal  taxes  and  the  corn  bill  may  be  abolished ; 
because  when  the  internal  taxes  were  taken  off,  we  could 
raise  corn  cheaper  than  any  country  in  the  world.  I  have 
not  time  now  to  enter  into  the  matter  fully  ;  but  I  am  at  all 
times  ready  to  prove,  that  we  stand  in  need  of  none  of  these 
taxes.  I  am  at  all  times  ready  to  prove,  that  the  kingly 
government  would  be  safer  without  these  taxes  than  with 
them.  We  have  not  called  for  reform  for  the  purpose  of 
gratifying  a  theoretical  whim;  but  for  the  purpose  of  ob- 
taining solid  good;  for  the  purpose  of  relieving  ourselves 
from  the  ruin  and  misery  in  which  we  are  steeped  ;  and, 
unless  it  produce  these  consequences,  it  will  make  our  con- 
dition  worse  than  it  was  before ;  because,  to  all  the  pre» 
sent  evils,  will  be  added  the  great  evil  of  disappointed 
hope.  We  have,  therefore,  now  to  consider  of  the  means 
which  we  ourselves  ought  to  make  use  of,  in  order  to  secure 
this  great  end. 

IV.  On  the  sort  of  men  who  ought  to  be  chosen,  and  on 
the  pledges  which  they  ought  to  give  before  they  be 
chosen. 

It  is  very  much  to  be  feared,  that  the  habit  of  looking  up 
to  men  of  rank  and  wealth  will  still  prevail  in  the  selecting 
of  members  of  Parliament ;  and,  if  it  prevail  to  any  very 
great  extent,  the  reform  will  produce  no  good  effect,  and  the 
miseries  of  the  people  would  finally  produce  a  general  con- 
vulsion and  total  revolution.  When  an  elector  observes, 
that  it  i«  necessary  to  have  some  man  of  station  or  wealth, 


260  Two-penny  Trash; 

something  like  the  following  dialogue  would  take  place  be- 
tween him  and  me. 

CoBBETT.  Why  do  you  want  a  man  of  rank  or  of 
wealth  ! 

Elector.  Because  he  is  more  likely  to  be  a  clever  man 
and  to  understand  such  matters,  on  account  of  the  superior 
education  which  he  has  had. 

CoBBETT.  Is  the  country  in  a  state  of  ruin,  misery,  and 
crime ;  is  it  not  loaded  with  an  irredeemable  debt? 
Elector.  Yes,  certainly. 

CoBBETT.  Have  we  not  been  governed  entirely  by  men 
of  rank  and  of  wealth  ? 

Elector.  Yes,  we  certainly  have. 

CoBBETT.  What  reason  have  you  to  suppose,  thea,  that 
the  same  sort  of  men  are  the  only  men  capable  of  putting 
things  to  rights  ;  and  do  you  believe  that  any  thousand  men, 
caught  by  the  legs,  by  straining  a  string  across  the  road, 
could  have  managed  their  matters  worse  than  to  have  made 
the  existence  of  themselves  and  the  government  depend 
upon  the  imaginary  value  of  little  bits  of  thin  paper  1 

Elector.  Why,  that  is  very  true,  to  be  sure;  but  if  a 
man  have  not  a  great  stake  in  the  country,  how  are  you  to 
depend  upon  his  doing  right  ? 

CoBBETT.  As  to  stake,  in  answer  to  such  an  observa- 
tion, old  TiERNEY  once  remarked,  that  stakes  of  this  sort 
generally  belonged  to  the  public  hedge.  But,  do  you  think 
that  the  Americans  have  got  a  good  government ;  do  you 
think  that  their  laws  are  wise  and  good ;  do  you  think  that 
their  affairs  are  managed  by  able  men  ? 

Elector.  Yes;  T  wish  to  God  ours  may  be  as  well 
managed ;  for  see  how  great  and  powerful  that  country  has 
become ;  and  see  how  happy  the  people  are,  under  the  sway 
of  the  Congress. 

CoBBETT.  Very  well,  then,  that  settles  the  point;  for 


1st  June,  1832.  261 

there  is  no  pecuniary  qualification  whatever  for  a  member 
of  Congress:  very  poor  men  are  very  frequently  chosen, 
and  very  rich  men  never.  There  have  been  seven  Pre- 
sidents: two  of  them  have  died  insolvent,  and  were  in- 
solvent at  the  time  when  they  were  Presidents. 

A  foolish  man  may  be  in  favour  of  men  of  rank  and 
wealth  before  he  hears  this  dialogue ;  but  it  is  only  a  roguish 
one  who  can  persevere  in  such  a  choice  after  he  has  heard 
it.  The  man  to  choose  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  man  that  has 
no  very  great  regard  for  riches.  Industry,  sobriety,  mode- 
ration in  his  expenses,  no  fondness  for  luxurious  living ; 
these  are  qualities  that  electors  ought  to  look  after;  and  in 
addition  to  these,  a  good  store  of  knowledge,  some  talent, 
and  great  resolution. 

With  regard  to  the  political  principles  of  the  man  to  be 
chosen,  pledges  are  the  best  guarantee  of  good  conduct; 
and  the  pledges  which  1  would  put,  to  any  man  who  asked 
me  for  my  vote,  are  these : 

1.  Will  you  make  a  motion,  or  support  a  motion,  for  the 
repeal  of  the  malt-tax,  the  hop-tax,  and  the  soap-tax? 

2.  Will  you  do  the  like  with  regard  to  the  Corn  Bill  ? 

3.  Will  you  do  the  like  for  an  abolition  of  the  tithes  ? 

4.  Will  you  do  the  like  with  regard  to  the  assessed  taxes  ? 

5.  Will  you  do  the  like  with  regard  to  the  stamp  taxes  of 
every  description  ? 

There  are  many  other  things  which  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment ought  to  do.  Here,  however,  might  be  enough  to 
begin  with;  and  if  a  candidate  refused  to  answer  all  these 
questions  in  the  affirmative,  and  to  put  his  name  to  them,  I 
should  deem  that  man  a  traitor  to  his  country  who  would 
give  him  a  vote. 


.  \ 


262  Two-F£NNY  Trash; 

—I--  ^jf"  f*"^ 
COBBETT-CORN. 

^  This  has  been  a  Hoe  season  fur  plautiog  the  cum,  which 
now  generally  up,  1  was  unable  to  find  a  liitle  farm  to  suit  me, 
80  as  to  be  able  to  plant  the  corn  thii  year,  in  order  to  raise  a  hun- 
dred quarters  according  to  my  wish  ;  but  I  found  a  friend  more 
than  a  hundred  miles  disUnt  from  London,  who  had  a  field  of  nine 
acres,  which  he  was  willing  to  plant.  I  intended  to  go  myself  to 
superintend  the  planting  of  this  field;,  and  I  appointed  to  be  on  the 
spot  on  the  6th  of  May,  the  ground  having  been  previously  pre- 
pared. But,  on  the  25th  of  April,  seeing  the  political  storm  that 
was  gathering,  1  determined  ou  remaining  in  London,  and  on 
sending  a  man  down  to  do  the  business  in  my  stead.  Ou  the  very 
day  of  Lyndhurst's  motion  the  corn  was  begun  to  be  planted,  and 
the  planting  was  finished  at  the  end  of  four  days.  I  have  not  heard 
of  the  corn  being  up;  but  1  know  that  it  is  up;  because  1  planted  a 
small  piece  of  corn  on  the  same  days,  the  middle  day  of  which  was 
the  9th  of  May  ;  and  mii>e  is  up  and  looking  beautifully  well. 

The  readers  of  the  Register  will  recollect  that,  od  the  2Uh  of 
September  last,  I  published  a  challenge  to  the  Yankees  in  the  fol- 
lowing words:—**  Tg  all  the  Yankees  on  the  Face  of  the  Earth.— 
<*  1,  William  Cobbett,  of  Kensington,  old  England,  hereby  offer  to 
<*  bet  any  Yankee  100/.,  the  conditions  of  which  btt  are  as  follows. 
*'  First,  that  the  said  Yankee  shall  plant  an  acre  of  corn  next  spring 
"  in  one  piece,  and  that  I  will  plant  au  acre  of  corn  in  England, 
**  that  the  said  Yankee  shall  have  his  acre  standing  and  growing  in 
*'  some  place  within  ten  miles  distance  of  the  Court  House  of  Nevr 
**  York.  ;  that  when  he  shall  declare  it  to  be  ripe.  Dr.  Mitchill  of 
**  New -York,  his  countryman,  or  in  case  of  inability  in  bim,  Mr. 
**  John  Tredwell  of  Long  Island,  shall  go  and  ascertain  from  the 
«'  measuring  of  a  square  rod,  impartially  taken,  how  much  corn  he 
**  has  standing  upon  his  acre,  and  that  the  said  Yankee  shall  appoint 
**  one  of  his  countrymen  residing  in  England  to  come  in  like  man- 
**  ner,  and  take  an  account  of  the  amount  of  my  crop;  that  the 
**  parties  shall  communicate  to  us  severally  the  amount  of  the  crop 
"  in  America,  and  the  amount  of  the  crop  in  England  ;  that  if  the 
*'  American  judge's  account  of  the  Yankee's  crop  exceeds  that  of 
"  mine,  Dr.  Mitchill  or  the  other  juilge  shall  draw  upon  me  for  the 
*<  100/.  through  Mr.  John  Harris  of  New-York,  who  will  pay  the 
**  bill;  that  if  the  contrary  be  tlie  result,  the  said  Dr.  Mitchill,  or 
"  Mr.  John  Tredwell  shall  see  the  100/.  paid  to  the  said  Mr.  John 
*•  Harris  on  my  account. 

**That  there  may  be  no  dispute  about  big  corn  or  little,^  and  the 
**  difference  or  amount  of  crop,  or  the  difference  there  is  in  great 
**  corn  or  small  corn  in  filliug  the  bushel,  the  question  shall  be 
*'  decided  by  weight  of  shelled  coru,that  is  to  say,  a  rod  of  ground 
**  shall  have  the  ears  taken  off,  husked  and  shelled  upon  the  spot, 
y  and  then  weighed,  and  the  question  be  decided  by  the  weight. 


1st  Juke,  1832.  263 

"  Now  I  am  perfectly  serious  in  this  challenge,  and  I  do  it  to 
**  convince  the  people  of  the  United  States  that  we  can  grow  as 
*<  good  corn  as  they,  and  even  greater  crops.  They  have  always 
•'  said  to  me  that  com  was  the  only  thing  wanted  to  make  Eng^ 
**  and  the  finest  country  in  the  world,  and  this  is  to  convince  them 
**  that  we  have  got  it.  I  desire  Mr.  George  Woodward  of  New 
**  York  to  put  this  into  the  American  newspapers.  Another  con- 
**  dition  is,  that  any  one  accepting  the  challenge  must  communicate 
•*  that  fact,  and  declare  the  spot  where  the  acre  of  land  is,  to  Mr, 
**  Woodward,  before  the  first  day  of  May  next ;  and  Mr.  Woodward 
*'  must  be  satisfied  that  the  party,  if  losing,  will  pay  the  100/.  at 
•*  once, 

**  The  umpire  appointed  to  judge  of  my  crop,  must  be  one  that 
•*  Dr.  Mitchill,  Mr.Tredwell,  or  Mr.  Woodward,  will  be  answerable 
*'  for  in  point  of  integrity." 

Bold  fellow  as  JonathAxN  is,  he  has  never  accepted  my  challenge. 
But  I  find  that  my  corn  has  been  planted  in  America.  So  that 
my  eldest  son,  who  is  really  the  author  of  all  this  corn  affair,  ap- 
pears destined  to  improve  the  agriculture  of  both  his  countries, 
being  a  citizen  of  one  by  birth,  and  a  natural-born  subject  of  the 
other  by  parentage.  I  take  the  following  from  the  **  New  York 
Farmer  and  Horticultural  Repository  '*  of  the  17th  of  No- 
vember last.  The  editor,  having  inserted  the  above  challenge  in 
his  paper,  then  makes  the  following  remarks : 

**  We  give  the  above  a  place  in  our  columns,  not  to  encourage 
'*  betting,  but  as  an  article  of  intelligence.  Mr.  C.  could  scarcely 
*'  have  chosen,  in  this  State,  a  circle  of  ten  miles  radius  in  which 
•*  theye  is  less  corn  grown  than  around  this  city. — A  gentleman 
**  informs  us  that  Mr.  Woodward  planted  some  of  Mr*  CobbettV 
**  corn  in  his  garden  in  Jay-street,  in  Brooklyn,  Long  Island,  and 
'*  found  it  to  ripen  much  sooner  than  our  common  Indian  corn, 
*'  Mr.  Woodward  is  very  positive  that  a  crop  of  corn  could  be  fully 
*'  ripened,  planted  oftei'  the  harvesting  of  oats,** 

I  am  sure  that  Mr.  Woodward  is  right :  aye,  and  after  a  crop 

of  rye  too;  and  after  a  crop  of  Timothy-grass.     Here,  then,  is  a 

benefit  conferred  upon  these  Yankees  !     I  taught  them  the  value 

of  Swedish  turnips,  mangel-wurzel,  and  cabbages,  as  cattle- food  ; 

1  took  them  out  a  breed  of  beautiful  Sussex  hogs  ;  and  my  son  has 

now  given  them  this  corn  ;  so  tliat  they  are  amply  paid  for  having^ 

afforded  me  shelter  from  Sidmouth  and  Castlereagh's  dungeons* 

I  and  my  son  owe  them  nothing  ;  and,  when  our  country  shall 
have  got  a  good  and  cheap  government,  we  can,  with  clear  con- 
sciences, recommend  the  paring  of  their  nails,  and  the  making  of 
them  bow  to  that  power  which,  freed  from  infernal  boroughraon- 
gering,  will  again  claim  and  enforce  her  dominion  of  the  seas.  No 
American  that  ever  conversed  with  me  upon  this  subject  will  deny, 
that  I  always  said,  that  I  should  never  die  in  peace  without  making 
them  again  bow  to  England  ;  and  that  bow  to  her  again  they 
should,  wheBfever  we  shook  off  tlie  power  of  the  hellish  borough- 


264  COBBETT-CORN. 

mong-ers.  They  know  this  too;  and  hence  those  American  pam- 
phlets against  our  reform  which  the  base  vagabonds  of  the  Quar* 
terly  Review  have  so  liberally  quoted,  and  which  wise  Boscawen 
quoted  in  the  House  of  Lords  I  Pretty  stuff,  then,  is  the  talk  about 
the  liberties  of  waAiAinrf/  Eiiglish  kind  is  quite  enough  for  me, 
including  Scotch  and  Irish  in  the  word  English,  I  like  the  Ameri^ 
cans  exceedingly  :  between  my  friends  here  and  my  friends  there, 
it  would  be  very  painful  for  me  to  state  a  preference.  But,  Eng* 
LAND  is  my  country :  I  must  share  in  all  her  glory  and  in  all  her 
disgrace  ;  and  when  it  is  a  question  of  her  honour  and  well-being, 
I  must  cast  aside  all  private  recollections  and  feelings.  From  this 
sentiment  it  was  that  I  always  resolutely  declined  becoming  a  citi» 
zen  of  the  United  States ;  and  that  1  also  as  resolutely  declined 
being  introduced  to  any  person  belonging  to  the  government  o£ 
America,  While  love  of  my  own  country  made  me  rejoice  at  their 
triumphs  over  the  boroughmongers,  I  always  said,  that  if  we  were 
delivered  from  them,  I  never  would  rest  until  I  saw  the  Amei'i' 
cans  acknowledge  explicitly  our  right  to  dominion  on  the  seas.  1 
wish  thera  all  the  happiness  that  men  can  enjoy  in  this  world  ;  but 
a  nation  may  be  very  happy  without  being  permitted  to  swagger 
about  and  be  saucy  to  England. 

With  regard  to  Corn,  e'en  est  fait,  as  the  French  say.  Never 
will  t/ona^Aaw  bring  a  bushel  of  his  corn  to  England  after  three 
years  from  next  November.  The  nine  acres  that  I  have  spoken  of 
above  will  settle  this  matter. 

N.  B.  The  Yankees  do  not  seem  to  be  alarmed  lest  their  **  pigs 
should  die  ov  the  inurran,  or  their  peepul  ov  y alter  janders**  They 
seem  to  laugh  at  this  fool-liar  stuff,  as  the  people  of  Long- 
TAHISH  did. 


LECTURES. 


At  the  request  of  the  Union  of  the  Working  Classes,  I  gave  a 
Lecture  at  their  place  of  meeting,  in  Theobald* s-road^  Rcd-Lion- 
square,  on  Tuesday  evening,  the  29th  instant;  and  I  propose  to  do 
the  same  on  Tuesday  Jiezt,  the  bth  of  June.  On  Monday,  the  4th 
of  June,  1  am  to  be  at  Deptford,  or  Greenwich,  for  the  same  pur- 
pose ;  and  I  propose  to  be  at  Chichester  in  about  ten  days,  in  my 
way  to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  at  last  !  We  must  all  put  our  shouK 
ders  heartily  to  the  wheel  now,  for  fear  (to  use  the  words  of  the 
LIAR)  the  factions  should  be  "  a  deluden  ov  the  peepul  " 


Printed  bj  WmX  CobbeU,Johii3on'i-court,  Fleet-street. 


No.  12.  Vol.  11. 


COBBEirS 

TWO-PENNY   TRASH 

For  the  Month  of  July,  1832. 

Published  monthly,  sold  at  \2s.  a  hundred ,  and  for  300,  taken  at 

once,  \\s. 


TO    THE 

WORKING  PEOPLE. 

1.  The  Reform  Festivalj  to  be  held  in  Hampshire,  on 

'7th  Jul]/,  IS32. 

2.  The  Billy  authorizing  the  sale  of  dead  people' s  bodies^ 

and  my  petition  to  the  Lords  against  it. 

3.  The  pledges  to  be  taken  for  Members  to  the  Reformed 

parliament. 


Kensington,  I4th  June,  1832, 
My  Friends, 

I  have  always  been  of  opinion  that  we  owe  the  Reform 
Bill  more  to  the  COUNTRY  LABOURERS  than  to  all  the 
rest  of  the  nation  put  together :  because  if  they  had  remained 
quiet  under  their  sufferings ;  if  they  had  not  resolved  not  to 
be  reduced  to  potatoes,  and  if  they  had  not  acted  as  they 
did,  in  order  to  preserve  themselves  from  this  state  of  horri- 
ble degradation,  Wellington  would  not  have  been  turned 
out,  Grey  would  not  have  come  in,  the  Parliament  would 
have  acted  upon  Wellington's  insolent  declaration,  and 
we  should  have  had  no  Reform  Bill  at  all ;  though,  in  time, 
we  must  have  had  a  terrible  and  violent  revolution.  Every 
man,  therefore,  who  really  wishes  for  the  settlement  of  our 
difficulties  to  terminate  in  peace,  must  feel  gratitude  towards 
these  country  labourers.     I  feel  this  gratitude  in  a  peculiar 

London  :  Published  by  the  Author,  11,  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street, 
and  sold  by  all  Booksellers. 

If 


266  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

degree;  because,  taking  England  throughout,  I  know  more 
of  their  toils,  their  sufferings,  and  their  virtues,  than  any 
other  man.  I,  therefore,  shall  spend  my  day  of  triumph 
amongst  them ;  and  for  the  reasons  that  I  am  about  to  give, 
I  shall  do  it  in  Hampshire,  and  in  a  hamlet  called  Sutton 
ScoTNEY,  which  is  in  the  parish  of  Wonston,  and  which 
is  situate  at  about  seven  miles  from  Winchester,  seven 
miles  from  Stockbridge,  seven  miles  from  Andover, 
seven  miles  from  WhitchurcH;  twelve  miles  from  Ba- 
singstoke, fourteen  miles  from  Odiham,  twelve  miles 
£rom  Alton,  and  seven  miles  from  Arlesford.  And 
which  little  hamlet  is  on  the  road  from  London  to 
Salisbury,  going  through  Basingstoke  and  Stockbridge, 
At  Sutton  Scotney  the  labourers  of  ten  parishes  met, 
•when  they  sallied  forth  in  November  1830,  to  remonstrate 
with  the  farmers,  the  parsons,  and  the  land-owners,  with  re- 
gard to  the  wages  that  had  reduced  them  to  a  state  of  half- 
starvation.  But  this  spot  is  more  dear  to  me,  and  it  ought 
to  be  dear  to  every  Englishman,  for  a  reason  other  than  this. 
It  was  at  this  spot  that  w^as  signed,  that  petition  for  par- 
liamentary reform,  which  the  labourer,  Joseph  Mason, 
carried  to  the  King,  at  Brighton,  in  the  month  of  October 
1830,  the  interesting  circumstances  relating  to  which  are  as 
follows : 

The  general  notion  in  London  has  been,  that  the  country 
labourers  are  ignorant  creatures ;  that  they  have  no  senti- 
ment at  all  relative  to  political  rights  and  liberties ;  that,» 
like  cattle,  they  know  when  they  are  hungry,  and  that  their 
risings  and  committing  acts  of  violence  resemble,  in  point 
of  motive,  the  feelings  which  animate  cows  or  oxen, 
when  they  break  out  of  a  barren  field  to  get  into  a  rich  pas- 
ture. Such,  too,  are  the  opinions  which  aur  Ministers  and 
members  of  Parliament  have  entertained  towards  these  pro- 
ducers of  the  food  and  the  wool  and  the  wood  of  the 
country.     Proceeding  upon  these  opinions,  they  have  adopt- 


1st  July,  1832.  ^267 

ed  schools  without  number,  and  the  distribution  of  millions 
of  pamphlets,  the  main  object  of  all  which  has  been,  to 
persuade  the  labourers  that  God  never  intended  anything 
but  potatoes  for  them  to  eat,  and  that  it  is  grievously  sin- 
fdl  in  them  not  to  be  content  with  such  diet,  though  they 
see  the  fields  and  the  meadows  covered  with  corn  and  with 
cattle,  created  by  their  own  labour.  It  has  also  been 
fashionable,  amongst  even  the  working  classes,  to  look  upon 
the  country  labourers,  particularly  those  here  in  the  South, 
as  being  totally  ignorant  with  regard  to  public  matters,  and 
as  being  utterly  unable  to  be  madfe  to  understand  anything 
about  the  political  causes  of  their  misery ;  and  of  course 
not  knowing  the  least  in  the  w^orld  about  Parliamentary 
Reform. 

Such  opinions  were  never  entertained  by  me  for  any  one- 
moment  of  my  life.  I  from  my  childhood  have  known  the 
country  labourers  well ;  and,  in  conversation  as  well  as  in 
writing,  I  have  always  maintained,  that  they  well  under- 
stood the  nature  of  their  wrongs  and  the  causes  of  their 
misery ;  and  that  the  day  .would  come  when  they  w^ould 
endure  that  misery  no  longer.  Now,  then,  for  the  circum- 
stances connected  with  this  petition,  which  I  have  spoken 
of  above. 

In  the  month  of  September,  or  early  in  October,  1830, 
when  scarcely  a  petition  had  recently  been  sent  up/br  par^ 
liameniary  reform,  the  labourers  of  the  parish  of  Won- 
STQN,  BuLLiNGTON,  and  Bartox  Stacey  (the  whole 
three  containing  a  population  less  than  one  thousand  five 
hundred  souls),  met  at  the  hamlet  of  Sutton  Scotney, 
where  they  agreed  to  a  petition  to  the  King,  and  subscribed 
two  or  three  pence  a  piece,  to  pay  the  expenses  of  a  man 
to  carry  it  and  present  it  to  the  King  at  Brighton,  where 
the  King  then  w^as.  The  man  chosen  to  go  on  foot  this 
distance  of  sixty  miles,  was  Joseph  Mason,  of  Bul- 
LiNGTON,  of  whom  I  shall  have  to  say.  a  good  deal  by^and- 

N  2 


268  Two-PENKY  Trash  ; 

bj.  The  following,  word  for  word  and  letter  for  letter,  is 
a  copy  of  this  memorable  petition,  with  a  copy  of  the  names 
of  all  these  who  signed  it. 

TO  THE 

KING'S  MOST  EXCELLENT  MAJESTY. 

The  humhle  petition  of  the  undersigned  persons,  belonging  to 
the  working  and  labouring  classes  of  the  parishes  of  Wonston, 
Barton  Stacey,  and  Bullington,  near  Winchester,  together  as- 
sembled within  their  respective  parishes, 

Showeth, 

That,  ready  and  proud  to  acknowledge  your  Majesty  our  lawful 
Sovereign,  we  are  willing  to  pay  every  respect  and  submission  so 
far  as  reason  and  justice  diclate,  flattering  ourselves  that  this  is 
all  your  Majesty  expects  or  demands. 

That  Kings  and  Government  were  instituted  for  the  happiness, 
■welfare,  and  for  the  better  regulating,  civil  society  ;  to  protect 
the  weak  against  the  strong,  the  rich  against  the  poor,  the  poor 
against  the  unjust  encroachments  of  the  rich,  in  short,  to  watch 
over  and  protect  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  the  people,  and  this 
•we  doubt  not  will  be  your  Majesty's  endeavour,  so  long  as  your 
Majesty  sway  the  royal  sceptre. 

That,  relying  on  this,  and  availing  ourselves  of  the  liberty  the 
laws  of  our  country  afford  us,  namely,  that  of  *^  petitioning  the 
King,*'  we  humbly  implore  your  Majesty  to  cast  an  eye  of  pity 
to  the  misery  and  wretchedness  that  at  this  moment  pervade 
every  part  of  this  country,  and  of  which  your  Majesty's  peti- 
tioners have  their  full  share.  That  many  of  us  have  not  food 
sufficient  to  satisfy  our  hunger;  our  drink  is  chiefly  the  crystal 
element ;  we  have  not  clothes  to  hide  the  nakedness  of  ourselves, 
our  wives,  and  our  children,  nor  fuel  wherewith  to  warm  us; 
while  at  the  same  time  our  barns  are  filled  with  corn,  our  garners 
with  wool,  our  pastures  abound  with  cattle,  and  our  land  yields 
us  an  abundance  of  wood  and  coal ;  all  of  which  display  the  wis- 
dom, the  kindness,  and  mercy  of  a  great  Creator  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  cruelty,  the  injustice,  and  the  depravity  of  his  crea- 
tures on  the  other.  Nearly  to  this  state  of  misery  have  your  Ma- 
jesty's humble  petitioners  long  lived,  anxiously  looking  forward 
for  better  days;  but  to  our  great  sorrow  and  disappointment,  we 
find  oppression  daily  press  heavier  and  heavier  on  our  shoulders, 
till  at  length  we  are  driven  to  the  brink  of  despair.  This  misery 
and  wretchedness  do  not  proceed  from  any  fault  on  the  part  of 
your  Majesty's  petitioners,  as  we  use  every  exertion  in  our  power 
to  subdue  those  bitter  evils  ;  but  experience  tells  us  that  **  all  is 
vain."  Some  of  your  Majesty's  wealthy  subjects  impute  this  pre- 
vailing depression  to  an  **  over-population,"  which  we  positively 
deny,  seeing  there  is  an  abundance  for  the  lowest  of  your  Ma- 
jesty's subjects,  if  possessed  of  the  ability  to  purchase.  But  your 
Majesty's  petitioners  more  reasonably  and  justly  impute  it  to  a 
misapplication  of  the  produce  of  talent  and  industry ;  and  this 


1 


1st  July,  1832.        '  269 

proceeds  from   a  misrepresentation  in   the  Commons   House  of 
Parliament. 

That  not  one  of  your  Majesty's  petitioners  has  ever  been  al- 
lowed to  exercise  his  rig:ht  of  voting  at  an  election  ;  that  right,  by 
the  present  system,  being  confined  to  the  rich  ;  in  conseriuence 
of  which,  men  have  been  returned  to  serve  in  Parliament  in  whom 
the  people  have  no  confidence  ;  who  consult  not  the  people's  welfare 
and  happiness,  but  have  entered  into  unnecessary  and  unjust  wars, 
to  defray  the  expenses  of  such  wars,  and  other  useless  purposes, 
have  laid  and  are  still  laying  on  us,  without  our  consent,  an  im- 
mense weight  of  taxes,  directly  contrary  to  the  law  of  the  land, 
which  says,  "  that  money  shall  not  be  taken  out  of  the  pockets 
of  the  people  iu  the  shape  of  taxes  without  their  consent,  or  the 
consent  of  their  representatives."  Such  is  the  language  of  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land,  and  is  as  binding  upon  every  branch  of 
the  Governmenjt,  as  the  common  law  is  on  the  subject :  and  though 
now  we  are  at^the  distance  of  sixteen  years  from  war,  the  taxes 
continue  but  little  abated. 

That,  in  consequence  of  this  misrepresentation  in  the  Commons 
or  People's  House  of  Parliament,  we  have  to  complain  that  up- 
wards of  50,000,000/.  annually  are  extorted  from  that  part  of  Great 
Britain  called  England,  and  of  which  sum  the  middle  and  labour- 
ing classes  pay  the  greatest  part;  whilst  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  of  America  cost  the  12,000,000  of  people  they  govern 
not  so  many  thousands,  in  consequence  of  which  the  people  sa 
governed,  live  in  the  greatest  state  of  ease  and  happiness.  We 
complain  that  this  tax  lie  most  heavy  on  those  articles  which  are 
the  necessaries  of  the  poor  man's  life  ;  such  as  malt,  hops,  tea, 
sugar,  tobacco,  soap,  candles,  &c.  &c.  :  which  cause  the  price  of 
those  articles  to  be  twice  their  real  vaUie  ;  that  our  wages  at  this 
time  are  not  more  than  nine  shillings  a-week  (at  Barton  Stacey  but 
eight  shillings),  out  of  which  we  have  to  pay,  one  shilling  for  the 
rent  of  our  house,  and  one  for  fuel,  leaving  but  seven  shillings 
per  week,  or  one  shilling  per  day  for  the  support. of  a  man,  his 
wife,  and  three  children.  That  at  this  time  the  tax  on  a  bushel  of 
malt,  or  a  pound  of  tea,  amount  to  as  much  as  the  labouring  man's 
wages  do  in  two  days  and  a  half.  We  complain  that  part  of  the 
money  extorted  iVora  us  go  to  pay  the  interest  of  a  debt,  part  of 
which  was  contracted  by  the  unnecessary  wars,  and  a  part  by  our 
fathers*  fathers'  great  grandfathers.  We  complain  that  another 
part  of  the  fruit  of  our  labours  go  to  pay  grants,  pensions,  sine- 
cures, &c.  &c.,  wantonly  heaped  on  the  heads  of  the  aristocracy 
and  their  relations,  whose  names  are  known  only  by  the  vast  sums 
they  receive,  and  who  has  never  rendered  the  country  any  service 
whatever.  We  complain  that  (according  to  the  statement  of 
Sir  James  Graham),  113  of  his  lat^  Majesty's  Privy  Councillors 
receive  amongst  them  650,000/.  per  annum,  some  of  whom 
are  members  of  the  Commons  House  of  Parliament,  this  being 
contrary  to  Magna  Charta,  which  says,  "  That  no  person 
who  has  an  office,  or  place  of  profit  under  the  King,  or  who 
receives  a  pension  from  the  crown,  shall  be  capable  of  serving 
as  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons."  We  complain  that 
notwithstanding   a  peace  of  sixteen  years,   we  have   a  standings 


370  Two-penny  Tra&ii  ; 

army  of  nearly  100,000  men,  fed  and  clothed  out  of  the  fruit 
of  our  labour;  part  of  which  force  is  kept  to  compel  us  to  pay  the* 
dreadful  burdens  heaped  on  our  shoulders ;  we  complain  that, 
amon§^  this  force,  is  twice  as  many  officers  as  is  uecessary,  such  as- 
g-euerais,  admirals,  colonels,  captaius,  &c.,  who  receive  immense 
salaries,  and  what  chitHy  are  in  some  way  or  other  related  to 
the  aristocracy  ;  we  complain  that  we  never  had  a  voice  in  the  legis- 
lature, though,  by  the  law,  we  are  all  liable  to  serve  as  soldiers, 
and  shed  our  blotd  in  the  defence  our  country,  in  any  war  the 
legislature  please  to  engage  in  ;  we  complain,  that  that  property^ 
commonly  called  church-properry,  is  applied  to  very  bad  and  use- 
less purposes,  purposes  which  have  no  concern  whatever  with 
religion;  that  whilst  many  poor  clergy  have  scarce  enough  to 
maintain  the  dignity  of  their  calling,  others  have  four,  five,  six, 
and  seven  livings  and  places  of  profit;  and  whilst  some  of  the 
bishops  have  revenues  amounting  to  from  ten  to  thirty,  thirty- 
five,  and  40,000/.  annually  ;  that  notwithstanding- Itliese  immense 
revenues,  the  bishops,  and  other  rich  men  in  the  church,  are  often 
calling  on  us  to  *»  subscribe  liberally"  towards  funds  for  erecting 
and  enlarging  churches  and  chapels,  and  for  propagating  the 
gospel  in  foreign  parts.  As  to  the  uselessness  of  this  church-pro- 
perty, we  would  cite  one  instance  ;  that  in  this  parish  of  Bartoa 
Stacey,  the  great- tithes,  which  in  most  part  are  sold  from  the 
church,  are  worth  nearly  1,000/.  per  annum,  the  small  tithes  450/., 
and  which  belong  to  the  Dean  of  Winchester.  A  curate  is  hired 
for  about  100/.  per  annum,  and  who  does  duty  twice  on  every  Sab- 
bath day;  that  the  1,350/.  between  the  money  collected  antl  the 
curate's  salary  has  no  more  concern  with  religion  than  the  sturdy 
ox  has  with  the  petty  affairs  of  the  bees  ;  nearly  half  as  much  as 
all  the  labourers  in  the  parish  earn,  and  which  is  as  much  loss  to 
the  parish  as  though  taken  and  thrown  into  the  sea  ;  we  complaia 
that  trial  by  jury,  so  highly  valued  by  our  ancestors  as  to  be 
deemed  almost  sacred,  has  been,  in  many  cases,  abolished  from 
our  courts  of  justice,  placing  it  in  the  power  of  magistrates  to  im- 
prison and  otherwise  punish  us,  and  who  are  chiefly  members  of  the 
aristocracy,  officers  under  the  crown,  or  clergy  of  the  establis'jed 
church,  who,  notwithstanding,  live  on  the  fruit  of  our  labour,  often 
insult  and  haughtily  treat  us  ;  so  that  Sir  John  Pollen,  who  is 
the  present  member  for  Andover,  in  the  vicinity  of  which  town  we 
live,  and  a  magistrate,  did,  at  a  meeting  in  that  town,  callus  "poor 
devils  ;"  and  who,  he  said,  **  had  hardly  a  rag  to  cover  them.**' 
"VVe  complain,  that,  notwithstanding  the  misery  and  half  starvation 
to  which  we  are  reduced,  the  law,  under  severe  imprisonment  and 
heavy  fine,  forbids  us  to  take  for  our  own  use  the  wild  birds  and 
animals  that  inhabit  the  woods  and  fields,  or  the  fish  that  swim  in 
the  water ;  those  being  kept  not  for  the  service,  but  for  the  sports 
of  the  rich. 

That  this  unnatural  state  of  things,  this  misery,  this  wretchedness, 
this  woe,  this  degradation,  this  want,  this  half-starvation  in  a  land  of 
plenty,  proceed  from  a  misrepresentation  of  that  which  ought  to  be  the 
Commons  House  of  Parliament,  the  members  of  which  are  returned 
by  the  rich,  contrary  to  the  will  of  the  people.  That  at  the  election 
for  this  county,  held  at  Winchester  in  August  last,  «ne  of  tha 


1st  Juxt,  1832. 


VX 


members  was  returned  against  the  will  of  nineteen-twentieths  of 
the  county  ;  a  person  in  whom  we  have  no  confidence ;  who  has, 
in  all  cases  of  importance  to  the  poor,  voted  on  the  side  of  oppres- 
sion, and  who  was  obliged  to  leave  the  place  of  election  in  dis- 
guise for  fear  of  the  just-enraged  people  who  had  assembled. 

Having  now  laid  our  sufferings  before  your  Majesty,  and  the 
fountain  whence  they  spring,  we  humbly  implore  and  earnestly 
pray  your  Majesty  to  exercise  your  royal  authority,  so  far  aa  to 
causeia  radical  reform  in  the  Commons  House  of  Parliament.  Many 
projects  have  been  made  to  this  effect,  even  by  some  of  its  members^ 
but  on  a  principle  calculated  to  yield  us  but  little  or  no  redresi?, 
showing  partiality,  and  which  has  been  proceeded  on  with  such, 
coldness  as  to  denote  insincerity  on  the  part  of  its  projector. 
The  mode  of  reform  (sweet  word)  which  your  Majesty's  humble 
petitioners  would  recommend  as  highly  beneficial  to  the  country 
at  large,  and  to  which  no  honest,  fair,  and  upright  man  can  object^  i$ 
that  of  annual  Parliaments,  universrd  suffrage,  and  vole  hy  ballot^ 
but  above  all  we  prize  the  ballot.  Till  this  takes  place,  we,  youc 
Majesty's  humblest  of  petitioners,  can  never  have  the  full  enjoyment? 
of  our  hard  earned  little  ;  not  daring  to  look  forward  for  better  days,, 
for  the  least  alleviation  of  our  miseries,  or  for  the  enjoyment  of 
those  blessings  which  a  merciful  God  has  in  profusion  thrown  round 
about  us. 

And  your  petitioners,  as  in  duty  bound,  will  ever  pray. 


Enos  Diddams 
Andrew  Diddams 
William  Snow 
Jacob  Bay 
George  Diddams 
Henry  Woodersoa 
John  Wheeler 
John  Mills 
John  Wi^more 
Samuel  Leach 
John  Hoar 
George  B'erriman 
Thomas  Taylor 
Edward  Wm.  Hoar 
William  Taylor 
Richard  Pike 
Charles  Lester 
Charles  Leach 
John  Berriman 
Joseph  Groves 
William  Ramble 
William  Lewis, 
William  Ralph 
William  Norris 
William  Pearce 

Robert  Mason 
Thomas  Malt 


WONSTON. 

William  Fisher 
Thomas  Newman 
Joseph  Newn^an 
Thomas  Wheeler 
John  Renolds 
James  VVhicher 
George  Gamester 
Michael  Chives 
Richard  Doll ery 
Nathaniel  Newman 
Charges  Collis 
William  Monday 
Henry  Pitter 
John  Lewis 
Charles  Goodfellow 
Robert  Groves 
James  Groves,  jun. 
Joseph  Carter 
James  Leach 
James  Taylor 
Charles  Leach 
John  Romble 
Charles  Marks 
William  Rudun 

BULLINGTON. 

Jacob  White 
Riciiard  Ventham 


Charles  Newman 
Stephen  Newman 
John  Pearce 
James  Wits 
Thomas  Butcher 
Thomas  Stock 
John  Newman 
George  Newman 
George  Judd 
Richard  Ventham 
Edward  Tarrant 
Thomas  Judd 
Charles  Diddamsr 
Henry  Taylor 
Peter  Mason 
William  Rye 
George  Ball 
John  Smith 
John  Hopgood 
William  Goodall 
Thomas  Self 
Tht>mas  Stub 
William  Jones 
John  Tomkins 


Emanuel  Baverstoc^ 
Ambrose  Courtney 


272 

jTames  Pierce 
William  Geroroe 
James  Tribbeck 
James  Ray 
Stephen  Grist 
George  Hatcher 
William  Perry 
Thomas  Dudman 
James  Clifford 
Stephen  Grist,  jun, 
William  Scarlet 
George  Ford 
Daniel  Rudwic 
George  Clifford 
William  Brown 
William  Dudman 


Two-penny  Trash  ; 


Francis  Ray 
William  Goodal 
George  Goodal 
James  Taylor 
Charles  Tavlor 
Stephen  Maton 
John  Silcock  ' 
Joseph  Silcock 
Joseph  Diddams 
John  Bastin 
John  Wheeler 
George  Wheeler 
Peter  Wheeler 
Richard  Withers 
Thomas  Baverstock 


John  Courtney 
John  Sackley 
Joseph  Mason 
William  Taylor 
William  Sackley 
Edmund  Sackley 
Samuel  Sackley 
James  Maton 
Henry  Benham 
Henry  Knoles 
Philip  Parsons 
Charles  Anhal 
James  Tarrant 
James  Allen 
Charles  Perry 


James  Diddams 
Charles  Blackman 
Thomas  Tatmage 
Henry  Hunt 
Robert  Anthony 
Thomas  Beryman 
John  Dore 
Charles  Stubs 
James  Ball 
John  Joyne 
Joseph  Beryman 
William  Renolds 
William  Mills 
John  Mackmaster 
Kathaniel  Panton 
George  Dazel 
John  Pane 


BARTON  STACEV. 

W^illiam  Pcopal 
James  Wield 
George  Cannon 
Isaac  Farmer 
James  Wheeler 
William  Garger 
Thomas  Pitters 
Thomas  Annal 
George  Guyatt 
Robert  Elliott 
James  Ball 
James  Antony 
John  Adams 
James  Panton   . 
Benjamin    Caselman 
William  Lack 
Thos.  Becyman,  jun. 

May  God  speed  your  petition, 
Mr.  Thomas  Alexander  Mr.  James  Prictow. 


Richard  Mills 
William  Roe 
Anthony  Antony 
Edward  Antony 
David  Cosetmau 
Robert  Hays 
Charles  Hutchener 
James  Rolf 
Charles  Davis 
Henry  Bugis 
Daniel  Diddams 
Charles  Ball 
William  Pane 
John  Pane 
George  Pane 
John  Guyatt 
John  Carter 


When  Joseph  Masqat  arrived  at  Brighton,  he  went  to- 

the  residence  of  the  King,  expecting,  and  justly  expecting, 

to  exercise  his  right  '^  to  petition  the  King  !''     In  this  only 

he  was  in  error ;  that  is,  thinking  th  e  right  existed,  and  was 

something  real  and  not  a  sham.     Instead  of  being  permitted 

to  petition  the  King,  he  was  told  that  which  is  contained 

in  the  following  copy  of  a  note  sent  to  him  by  Herbert 

Taylor,  to  help  pay  whose  enormous  salaries  he  had  been 

working  all  his  life-time. 

Pavilion,  Brighton,  Octcher  2i,  1830. 
Sir,— I  have  received  your  letter  of  yesterday,  inclosing  the  pe- 
tition which  you  have  been  deputed  by  certain  persons  belonging 


' 


1st  July^  1832.  273 

to  the  working"  and  labouring  classes  of  the  parishes  of  Wonston, 
Barton  Stacey,  and  Bulington,  near  Winchester,  to  present  to  the 
King,  and  J  beg  to  acquaint  you,  for  the  information  of  those  who 
have  signed  this  petition  that  the  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Home 
Department  is  the  proper  and  official  channel  of  such  communica- 
tions to  his  Majesty.  I  therefore  return  the  petition  to  you,  and  I 
am.  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

II.  Taylor. 

Mr.  Joseph  Mason,  Bullington,  Hants. 

To  come  to  London,  and  then  to  go  home,  was  another 
hundred  and  twenty  miles,  or  thereabouts.     He,  therefore, 
went  to  a  gentleman  at  Brighton,  whom  he  knew  to  have 
been  born  and  brought  up  at  Winchester,  gave  him  the 
petition,  and  the  insolent  note  of  Herbert  Taylor,  ia 
erder  that  the  former   might  be   sent  to  the  Secretary  o  ' 
State.     This   gentleman  sent  the  two  papers  to  his  brother, 
who  lives  in  London,  and  he  brought  the  papers  to  me,  to 
know  how  he  was  to  get  them  to  Peel.     After  looking  at 
the  papers,  and  hearing  the  whole  story,  I  said,  '^  Give  me 
'*  the  petition  :  let  it  not  be  disgraced  by  being  hawked  about 
"  in  that  manner :  a  time  will  yet  come  when  Englishraaa 
*'  may  petition  something  other  than  Herbert  Taylor 
^*  and  Peel.*'     When  Joseph  Mason  was  drawing  up  this 
sensible  petition,  and  when  he  was  tramping  a  hundred  and 
twenty  miles  on  the  business  of  presenting  it,  he  little  thought 
of  that  condemnation  to  death,  and  that  transportation,  and 
slavery  for  life,  to  which  he  was  to  be  sentenced  in  about 
two  months  from  the  day  on  which  he  presented  himself  at 
the   palace  of  "the  King's  /wos^    excellent  Md^^e&iy"^   at 
Brighton  !     He  little  thought,  that  being  one  of  a  crowd  who 
extorted  a  few  shillings  from  a  farmer  or  a  parson,  and  of 
which  he  neither  extorted  nor  took  any  part,  would  be  to 
commit  an  act  of '^  highway  robbery ,^^  for  which  he  should 
be  dragged  from  his  wife  and  child,  condemned  to  death," 
and  sent  into  slavery  for  life  !     Such,  however,  was  the  re- 
sult; and  the  Englishman  who  can  hear  the  story  without 
feeling  his  heart  swell,  and  feeling  the  blood  boiling  in  his 

n5 


,274  Xft&-fE^J9YTTiX%ii; 

veins,  deserves  to  perish  from  hunger,  and  to  be  food  for  the 
fowls  of  the  air. 

In  about  a  month  after  Joseph  Mason's  failure  to  get 
his  petition  to  the  hands  of  '*  His  most  excellent  Majesty," 
those  risings  for  increase  of  wages,  which  had  begun  in 
East-Kent,  had  extended  themselves  into  Hampshire, 
and  they  finally  reached  the  parishes,  in  about  the  centre  of 
which  lies  the  hamlet  of  Sutton  Scotney.  Of  the  part 
which  this  petition-carrier  took  in  these  risings,  I  shall  have 
to  speak  by- and -by  ;  but  first  let  us  see  who  and  what  he 
was.  His  parents  had,  for  generations,  been  labourers;  he 
was  born  in  one  of  these  parishes.  He  had  a  brother  whose 
name  is  Robert,  who  was  not  married.  Joseph  was 
married  and  had  one  child.  They  lived  in  the  parish  of 
BuLLiNGTON  wdth  their  mother,  who  had  been  a  widow  a 
good  many  years,  and  who  found,  in  the  great  ajid  skilful 
labour  of  her  sons,  in  their  rare  sobriety,  in  their  great  in- 
dustry and  excellent  moral  character,  safe  protection  from 
want,  from  all  need  of  parochial  relief,  and  from  all  those 
miseries  which  are  the  lot  of  mothers  who  have  children  of 
a  different  description.  Besides  the  work  which  these  two 
young  men  did  for  the  farmers  in  the  neighbourhood,  they 
rented  a  piece  of  ground,  consisting  of  about  three  acres  and 
a  half,  which  they  cultivated  mornings  and  evenings,  and  at 
times  when  they  had  no  other  work.  They  kept  a  cow, 
fatted  a  pig  or  two,  and  therefore  as  there  was  but  one  child 
in  the  family  they  were  a  great  deal  better  off  than  the  la- 
bourers in  general.  Therefore  it  was  not  mere  hunger  that 
induced  them  to  take  ^  part  in  the  risings.  They  were  in- 
duced, even  if  voluntary,  to  do  it  from  a  sense  of  duty  towards 
their  poorer  and  more  unfortunate  neighbours.  The  object 
of  the  risings  was,  not  to  commit  acts  of  violence  on  anybody, 
and  no  acts  of  violence  were  committed  ;  not  for  the  purpose 
of  committing  acts  of  plunder,  for  no  act»  of  plunder  took 
place :  but  solely  tor  the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  sufficiency 


1st  July,  1832.  875 

«f  food  and  of  raiment,  and  of  fuel  to  make  life  bearable  to 
those,  whose  labour  produced  all  the  food,  all  the  raiment, 
and  all  the  fuel.  Yet,  for  taking  the  mildest  and  most  in- 
offensive part  in  these  risings,  these  two  excellent  young  men 
were,  under  the  Special  Commission  which  Grey  advised 
the  King  to  give  to  Vaughan,  Parke,  Alderson,  Wellington, 
Denman,  Sturges  Bourne,  and  Serjeant  Wilder  condemned 
to  death,  and  transported  for  life. 

In  order  to  do  justice,  as  far  as  I  am  at  present  able,  to 
all  the  parties  concerned,  I  will  here  refer  to  an  account  of 
the  trials  in  Hampshire,  as  afterwards  published  by  the  Cu- 
rate of  the  Parish  of  Stoke  Charity.  I  will  draw  no 
conclusions  myself,  and  offer  no  opinions ;  but  will  simply 
state  the  facts  as  published  in  the  account  of  the  trials. 

Joseph  Mason,  aged  31  ;  Robert  Mason,  aged  22; 
we  first  indicted  for  what  they  called  robbing  one  Callender^ 
Sir  Thomas  Baring's  bailiff.  There  we  six  others' indicted 
along  with  them  ;  there  were  a  thousand  persons  or  more  ii|. 
this  rising  ;  but,  as  far  as  one  can  judge  from  the  report  of 
the  trial,  the  whole  burden  of  the  inquiry  was  about  the 
two  Masons,  The  jury,  however^  acquitted  them  both.  I4 
their  defence,  both  of  them  denied  ever  having  touched  any 
money :  and  both  said,  that  they  were  pressed  by  the  rest  of 
the  people,  and  compelled  to  go  with  them;  and  there  w^as 
no  evidence  brought  to  show  that  this  was  not  true.  Having 
escaped  here,  they  were  almost  instantly  clapped  into  an- 
other indictment;  and  the  next  day  were  put  upon  their 
trial  for  robbing  W.  Dowden.  Here  Joseph  was  caught* 
but  Robert  escaped.  On  the  same  day,  however,  he  was 
clapped  into  another  indictment,  when  the  Reverend S a.m,il^ 
J0LI.1FFE,  curate  of  Barton  Stagey,  swore,  that  he  w^ij 
fobbed  of  Jive  shillings^  and  that  Robert  Mason  wason^ 
of  the  robbers.  This  parson  swore  that  he  gave  the  fire 
BhilUngs  out  of  fear.  Robert  Mason  said,  in  his  defence, 
that  he  had  not  taken  the  money,  nor  participated  iu  it,; 


276  Two-penny  Trash; 

that  he  had  been  compelled  to  go  along  with  the  rest ;  and 
^'  that  if  the  lawyer  who  had  said  so  much  against  him  had 
**  been  in  the  road,  with  a  smock-frock  on  instead  of  that 
"  gown,  and  a  straw  hat  instead  of  that  wig,  he  would  now 
"  be  standing  at  the  bar  as  he  was;  that  an  honest  man  he 
**  had  always  been  ;  an  honest  man  he  still  was,  and  an 
'*  honest  man  he  would  ever  remain."  Mr.  Wm.  Wick- 
ham  and  Mr.  James  Wick  ham,  the  two  principal  land- 
owners in  the  neighbourhood,  gave  him,  as  they  before  had 
given  his  brother,  the  best  of  characters.  Mr.  Enos  Did- 
DAMS  did  the  same;  the  jury  most  strongly  recommended 
him  to  mercy ;  but,  like  his  brother,  he  was  condemned  to 
death,  and  transported  for  life.  Always  when  these  Masons 
were  tried,  up  came  the  story  about  the  Brighton  petition  ! 
When  Mr.  Enos  Did  dams  was  examined,  they  asked 
him  about  the  meetings  at  Sutton  Scotney  ;  and  Wilde 
asked  whether  they  did  not  meet  once  a  w^eek  to  read  a 
certain  weekly  publication.  The  infamous  Times  news- 
paper, which  from  first  to  last  sought  the  blood  of  these 
people,  represented  Mr.  Diddams  as  having  said  that  the 
sovereign  people  sent  a  petition  to  the  King,  and  that  sove- 
reign  people  subscribed  seventeen  shillings  to  carry  the  man 
to  Brighton.  The  same  bloody  newspaper  endeavoured  to 
make  the  public  believe  that  the  riots  in  Hampshire  had 
been  instigated  by  me.  It  constantly  connected  my  name 
with  these  transactions :  and  when  men  were  going  to  be 
hanged,  it  was  observed,  that  they  '^  did  not  confess  their 
connexion  with  Cobbett  and  Carlile.**  Mr.  Diddams 
and  others  were  very  closely  questioned  about  the  certain 
•weekly  publication  read  by  the  Masons  to  a  company  of 
labourers  at  Sutton  Scotney.  I  know  that  there  was  a 
regular  canvass  amongst  the  prisoners  in  the  jail  at  Win- 
chester, to  find  out  whether  any  one  would  acknowledge 
that  he  was  acquainted  with  me,  or  had  been  influenced  or 
instigated  by  me.     I  know  that  this  canvass  was  carried  ou 


1st  JULY,  1832.  ^  277 

by  a  church-parson :  and  I  know  that  that  parson  has  since 
got  a  good  fat  church -living,  with  regard  to  which,  God 
willing,  as  well  as  with  regard  to  other  church-livings,  I 
shall  have,  not  to  say  something,  but  to  do  something,  one 
of  these  days.  Just  at  the  same  time  the  curate  of  CroW' 
hurst  was  at  work,  upon  the  soul  of  a  poor  fellow^  who  had 
set  five  fires  with  his  own  hand,  and  who,  by  confessing 
against  me,  saved  his  life;  though  Henry  Cooke,  of 
MiCHELDEVER,  was  hanged  for  striking  BiNGHAar 
Baring  without  doing  him  any  harm  ai  all.  The  con- 
spiracy was  at  thaf  time  going  on  against  me ;  from  the 
effects  of  which  conspiracy  I  was  in  a  great  measure  pre* 
served  by  the  excellent  conduct  of  the  people  of  Battle 
and  the  neighbourhood,  whose  goodness  T  never  shall  forget, 
and  amongst  whom  I  should  have  spent  the  day  devoted  to 
the  reform  festival,  had  not  the  labourers  of  Hampshire 
suflferedso  much  more,  and  had  not  the  remains  of  Henry 
Cooke  lain  buried  near  to  the  spot  whereon  we  shall  keep 
the  festival. 

The  profligate  and  bloody  people  who  conduct  The 
Times  newspaper,  were  at  the  time  I  am  speaking  of  ever- 
lastingly engaged  in  efforts  to  prepare  the  public  mind  for 
my  destruction.  I  had  no  means  of  counteracting  their 
eflforts  'y  and  innumerable  persons  really  believed  that  I  was 
at  the  bottom  of  all  those  aiBFairs  which  were  called  "  riots  /^ 
but  which  I  have  never  called  riots,  and  ^  never  will.  The 
truth  is,  however,  that  I  was  an  utter  stranger  to  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Sutton  Scotney,  which  I  had  never  even 
passed  through  but  twice  in  my  life.  And  as  to  the 
Masons,  or  any  other  person  living  in  any  of  those  parishes, 
I  had  never  known  and  never  heard  of  any  one  of  them  in 
my  life.  Judge  of  the  imbecility  as  well  as  the  malignity  of 
the  beasts,  who  could  expect  to  find  letters  from  me  in  the 
cottage  of  the  Masons  I  Here  then  I  leave  this  matter 
for  the  present ;  but  it  is  only  for  the  present ;  for  if  it 


"278  Two-penny  Trash; 

shall  please  God  to  spare  my  life,  and  voucJi&afe  to  me  the 
use  of  my  senses;  and  if  the  people  at  Manchester,  or 
any  other  place,  shall  think  fit  to  put  me  into  Parliament,  I 
pledge  myself  that  this  is  not  the  last  that  shall  be  heard  of 
Joseph  and  Robert  Mason,  and  of  Henry  Cooke. 
^  Such  is  the  history  of  the  bearer  of  the  petition  to 
Brighton.  I  have  heard  a  great  deal  about  the  conduct  of 
several  parties,  who  had  a  hand  in  this  transaction,  and  who 
have  hugged  themselves  in  the  thought  of  never  hearing  of  it 
again.  I  am  not  in  a  situation  at  present  to  bring  this 
matter  forward,  with  proper  effect ;  but^  unless  some  very 
large  improvement  upon  Baring's  Bill  should  shut  me  out 
of  a  situation  in  which  I  should  be  able  to  do  it,  tlxese  par- 
ties, who  now  hug  themselves  in  the  thought  of  their  security^ 
shall  find  that  the  sending  of  the  Biighton  petitioner  across 
ihe  seas  does  not  preclude  an  inquiry  into  the  cause  of  that, 
sending. 

For  the  present,  however,  this  is  what  I  shall  do  with 
regard  to  the  Reform-festival.  I  shall  give  a  dinner  at 
Sutton  Scotney,  to  all  the  hundred  and  seventy-se\^n 
men  who  have  not  been  transported,  and  who  signed  the 
above  petition*  When  I  was  at  Nottingham,  I  purchased  a 
ham  that  weighed  seventy-two  pounds,  which  I  have  had 
properly  cured.  This  ham  with  two  or  three  fat  sheep, 
which  I  will  have  kille4>  shall  be  the  meat  for  our  dinner. 
I  will  have  bread  baked  for  the  occasion ;  and  I  will  have 
half  a  gallon  of  good  strong  beer  for  each  man ;  Mr.  Enos 
DiDDAMS,  whose  name  stands  at  the  head  of  the  peti-. 
tioners,  shall  be  our  chairman  ;  and  we  will  drink  to  the 
health  and  speedy  return  of  Joseph  and  Robert  Masox  ^ 
and  we  will  say  and  do  all  those  other  things  which,  on 
such  an  occasion,  will  be  most  meet. 

My  Reform-festival  I  will  hold  on  Saturday,  the  1th  of 
July,  that  being  the  anniversary  of  the  day  in  which  I  de- 
feated the  liberal  prosecution  of  the  Whigs »  and  on  account 


.     1st  July^  1832.  279 

of  which  defeat  the  people  of  these  villages  expressed  so 
much  jay.  I  invite  all  my  personal  friends,  who  live 
within  a  reasonable  distance  of  the  spot,  to  meet  m€,  and 
dine  with  me  at  Sutton  Scotney  on  that  day,  and  parti- 
cularly friends  from  Winchester.  I  invite,  also,  all  the 
farmers  in  the  neighbourhood,  whether  I  personally  know 
them  or  not ;  and  I  will  take  that  opportunity  of  giving  them 
my  opinion  about  the  ensuing  elections.  I  shall  provide  for  m]i 
guests,  the  petitioners  for  parliamentary  reform,  whose 
petition  Joseph  Mason  took  to  the  **  YJ^n^^ most  excellent 
Majesty*'  at  Brighton.  But  as  the  labourers  assembled 
will  be  more  numerous  than  my  company,  perhaps  the 
farmers  in  the  neighbourhood  may  send  a  sheep  or  two, 
and  a  bushel  or  two  of  flour  to  bs  baked  into  bread.  We 
must  have  tents,  or  sometliing  of  that  sort.  I  shall  send, 
or  go  down,  beforehand,  to  cause  due  preparations  to  be 
made.  If  any  one  in  the  county  wish  to  contribute  any- 
thing towards  the  entertainment  of  the  labourers  on  that  day, 
Be  can  communicate  with  Mr.  Enos  Diddams,  of  Sutton: 
Scotney,  who  is  a  very  intelligent  and  trustworthy  man. 

I  intend  to  send  this  notification  into  every  part  of  the 
county ;  and  all  my  friends  in  the  county,  who  can  afford 
to  travel  to  a  distance,  will  confer  a  personal  favour  upon  me, 
by  meeting  me  at  the  place,  and  on  the  day  appointed,  I 
shall  be  very  happy  to  see  all  the  farmers  of  the  neighbour- 
hood present:  I  am  very  desirous  to  lay  before  them  my 
view  with  regard  to  the  tithes  ;  and  I  am  still  more  desirous 
pf  seeing  fanners  and  labourers  meet  together  in  harmony, 
and  to  testify  towards  each  other  feelings  of  hearty  good- 
will. I  advise  the  people  of  Hampshire  not  to  listen  a  mo- 
ment to  any  man  who  will  not  pledge  himself  to  these; 
nor  to  any  man  who  is,  in  any  way  whatever,  a  receiver  of 
taxes,  or  the  father  or  the  son  of  a  receiver  of  taxes.  I 
told  the  people  in  Hampshire,  at  the  county  meeting,  in 
October  lafet,that  Sir  James  Macdonald  was  ^^ pleading 


280  '    Two-PEKNY  Trash; 

for  a  thumping  place  i'*^  and  he  has  got  the  thumping 
place  !  But  he  was  a  greedy  eater  of  the  taxes  before ;  and, 
therefore,  none  but  fools  have  been  deceived  by  him.  I 
trust,  that  the  people  of  Portsea,  the  people  of  Win- 
chester, the  people  of  the  whole  county,  will  take  care 
what  they  are  at  with  LOAN-MONGERS.  Let  them 
take  care  of  these,  above  all  things ;  for  these  are  the  most 
dangerous  of  all  possible  creatures:  they  have  jaws  more 
grinding  than  those  of  death,  and  a  maw  more  devouring 
than  hell  itself.  Wm.   COBBETT. 


CHOPSTICK  FESTIVAL. 

2ZdJune,  1832. 
As  I  mentioned   in   my  last,   I   shall,  for  reasons  there 
Stated,  hold  a  festival  at  Sutton   Scotney,  seven  miles 
from   Winchester  (on  the  road  to  Whitchurch),  on 
the  7th  of  July.     I  invite,  as  my  guests,    all  those   who 
signed  the  petition  for  reform  which  was  carried  by  Joseph 
Mason  to  be  presented  to  the  King  at  Brighton.     I  request 
Mr.  Diddams,  of  Sutton  Scotney,  to  make  this  known  to 
them  all,  and  the   list  of  them  all  he  will  find  in  the  pre- 
ceding pages  ;  and  most  of  them  must  have  masters  of  some 
sort  or  other  ;  I  beg  those  masters  to   have  the  goodness  to 
give  them  the  day  for  themselves,  which  I  shall  deem  an 
obligation  conferred  upon  myself.     It  is  not  my  object,  and 
it  never  has  been,  to  set  men  against  their  masters  ;  I  have 
been  a  master  ever  since  I  was  a  man  ;  I  was  first  a  master 
over  soldiers ;  and  since  that  I   have  been  a  master  over 
servants;    and    I    have    always   exacted    strict  obedience, 
while  at  the  same  time   I   have  always  taken  care  that  the 
person  to  obey  obeyed  with  a  full  belly.     I  have  long  been 
warning  farmers  of  their  danger.     The  danger  at  last  came, 
and  then  I  was  reproached  and  prosecuted  as  the  cause  of 
the  danger.     Why,  my  father  was  a  farmer,  though  a  small 
one  3  I   was  born  and  bred  up  amongst  farmers ;  I  have 


I 


1st  July,  1832.      .  281 

always  delighted  in  their  pursuits ;  and  how  can  my  feelings 
towards  them  be  other  than  those  of  good  will  ?  but  I  can- 
not, without  abandoning  my  nature,  without  forgetting  all 
that  I  was  taught  in  my  childhood,  without  setting  at  nought 
every  precept  and  line  of  the  word  of  God,  hold  my  peace, 
while  those  who  create  all  the  food  and  drink  and  fuel  and 
raiment  and  lodging,  are  upon  the  verge  of  perishing  with 
hunger  and  with  cold. 

I  request  Mr.  Deller,  of  An  cover,  to  have  about  a 
hundred  gallons  of  good  beer  at  Sutton  Scotney,  on  or 
before  the  6th  of  July,  and  to  place  it  where  Mr.  Enos 
DiDDAMS  shall  appoint.  I  will  take  down,  as  I  said  be- 
fore, my  Nottingham  Ham,  which  weighs  seventy 
.pounds,  and  I  am  sure  that  there  will  not  want  a  butcher  in 
London  to  give  us  a  couple  of  fat  sheep  weighing  a  hundred 
pounds  a  piece.  Half  a  hundred  of  flour  will  make  us  a 
score  of  plum  puddings,  and  the  devil  is  in  it  if  there  is  not 
a  grocer  in  London  who  will  giye  us  twenty  pounds  of  plumi?. 
There  is  surely  a  miller  in  Hampshire  who  will  send  to  Mr» 
DiDDAMsa  couple  of  bushels  of  flour,  on  or  before  the  3rd  of 
July,  in  order  that  he  may  get  it  made  into  bread.  Please  God 
we  will  have  some  corn-puddings,  even  at  the  risk  of  having* 
the  '^  murraUj  or  the  yellurjanders.''  AVhen  I  was  in  the 
North,  I  did  not  forget  the  Chopsticks  of  the  hard  parishes. 
One  Yorkshire  clothier  gave  me  a  pair  of  blankets  for  Mrs. 
Mason  ;  another  gave  me  a  pair  of  blanketsfor  poor  Cooke, 
the  father  of  the  youth  who  was  hanged  for  hitting  Bing- 
ham Baring,  and  doing  him  no  bodily  harm.  One  ma- 
nufacturer of  Lancashire  gave  me  cotton  to  make  gowns 
for  twenty  women,  and  frocks  for  ten  girls,  and  another 
manufacturer  of  Lancashire  printed  the  cotton.  One  of 
these  gowns  I  shall  give  to  Mrs.  Mason  of  Bulungton, 
one  to  Mrs.  Cooke,  the  mother  of  poor  Henry  Cooke  of 
Micheldever,  one  to  Mrs.  Carter  of  Sutton  Scotney, 
with  two  or  three  frocks  for  her  girls  5  two  I  shall  send> 


382*  Two-penny  TratSUi; 

with  two  pair  of  cotton  stockings,  which  I  got  at  Notting^^* 
ham,  and  with  two  bonnet  ribands  that  I  got  at  Coventr^f 
to  the  young  women  who  had  their  hair  cliopped  off  by  the 
hired  overseer  of  Ninfield  in  Sussex,  lamenting  that  I 
cannot  split  myself  in  two,  and  do  the  same  thing,  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Battle  as  I  am  about  to  do  at  SuTTaW 
ScoTNEY,  feeling  myself  to  be  under  everlasting  obligations 
to  the  kind  and  virtuous  people  in  that  neighbourhood,  who 
I  hope  wuU  be  satisfied  with  the  reasons  which  I  have  given 
for  holding  my  festival  at  Sutton  Scotney.  The  other 
gowns  and  frocks  T  shall  give  to  the  wives,  daughters,  or 
mothers,  of  any  of  the  petitioners,  who  were  transported  or 
any  way  punished;  and  I  hsreby  request  Mr.  Enos  Did- 
DAMS  to  make  a  list  of  all  these,  and  to  be  prepared  to 
give  me  his  advice  as  to  the  distribution. 

Besides  the  above  business,  and  the  eating  and  drinking  j 
besides  the  advice  which  I  shall  have  to  give  to  the  farmer* 
wpon  the  subject  of  the  approaching  elections,  and  the  ex^ 
planations  that  T  shall  have  to  give  to  the  labourers,  on  the 
subject  of  Parliamentar}^  Reform,  and  as  to  the  manner  la 
which  they  will  be  benefited  by  it ;  besides  these,  there  i& 
an  important  matter  for  us  to  settle  upon ;  namely,  the 
putting  of  a  tomb -stone  over  the  grave  of  Henuy  Cooke,' 
having  engraven  on  it  the  history  of  his  death,  and  naming 
all  the  parties,  having,  in  any  way  whatever,  a  hand  in  the 
transaction*  Simply  stating  the  undeniable  facts,  leaving 
all  commentary  to  the  hearts  of  the  beholders. 
.  I  hereby  request  Mr.  Enos  Diddams  to  be  thinking 
about  the  practicability  of  providing  tents  or  covering  of 
«ome  sort.  Perhaps  it  might  be  best  to  divide  the  party^ 
placing  five  or  six  in  a  house,  during  the  time  of  dinner, 
and  drinking  after  dinner.  A  considerable  party,  of  course, 
could  be  entertained  in  the  public- houses,  if  an  arrange^ 
xnent  could  be  made  with  the  innkepers  for  tlie  purpose* 
f  here   naay   be  many  friends   come  from  a  distance.     I 


1st  July,  1832.  283 

should  hope  that  the  farmers  hard  by  would  give  us  stable 
room  for  a  short  space  of  time.  But  I  request  Mr.  Dld- 
DAMS  to  write  to  me  on  Sunday  aext  at  the  latest,  giving: 
his  opinion  as  to  all  these  matters.  I  have  received  the  foU 
lowing  letter  in  consequence  of  my  article  on  the  subject 
last  week : — 

Landguard,  Isle  of  IVight^  ISth  June^  1832. 
Silt, 

In  reading  your  Register  to-day,  I  find  it  is  your  inten- 
tion to  dine  with  the  labourers  of  Sutton*  Scotney,  oq 
the  7th  July,  health  permitting.  I  shall  do  myself  the  plea- 
sure of  joining  your  company.  Your  ideas  with  respect  to 
showing  our  demonstrations  of  joy  at  the  defeat  of  the 
borough  mongers  coincides  with  ours — the  farmers  and 
tradesmen  of  the  parish  of  Brading.  We  have  miade  a 
very  liberal  subscription  for  a  dinner  to  be  given  to  all  tha 
labourers  of  the  parish,  to  take  place  on  Brading  down^ 
next  Wednesday.  Of  course  we^  the  farmers,  will  dine 
with  them,  and  will  take  the  opportunity  of  explaining  to 
them  the  nature  of  this  great  measure, 

I  remain,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

Richard  Smith. 

This  is  what  the  farmers  are  doing  in  a  great  many  places, 
and  it  is  what  they  will  do  everywhere,  where  wisdom  and 
and  justice  prevail  in  their  breasts.  At  Battle  and  the 
neighbourhood  they  have  raised  a  hundred  pounds  for  the 
purpose !  And  am  I  at  last  destined  to  behold  that  which  I 
have  been  as  anxious  for  almost  as  for  the  preservation  of 
wy  life ;  namely,  to  see  the  employers  and  the  employed 
cordially  reconciled  to  one  another,  all  being  convinced  that 
their  interests  are  mutual  and  inseparable  ?  We  shall  have 
a  goodly  company,  I  dare  say,  at  Sutton  Scotney; 
and  I  trust  that  we  shall  so  act  our  part  as  to  put  our  inso- 


284  Two-penny  Trash  ; 

lent  enemies  to  the  blush.  I  beseech  the  electors  of  Hamp- 
shire, and  particularly  of  Winchester,  not  to  promise 
their  votes  to  anybody  till  after  the  Sutton  Scotney 
festival.  Wm.  COBBETT. 


BILL 

TO  AUTHORIZE  THE 

SALE  OF  DEAD  BODIES. 

Kensington,  25th  June,  1832. 
My  Friends, — This  horrid  Bill  is  again  before  the 
House  of  Lords.  To  day  my  jaetition  (inserted  below) 
against  it  will,  I  hope,  be  presented  to  the  Lords ;  for 
I  sent  it  for  that  purpose  to  the  Bishop  of  London, 
yesterda)^,  at  his  palace  at  Fulham,  where  he  was  when 
the  petition  was  delivered.  I  beg  you  to  read  this 
petition  with  attention.  Mind,  this  is  a  thing  in  which 
you  are  all  most  deeply  interested ;  and  the  House  of 
Lords  will  now  soon  decide,  whether  you  and  your 
parents  and  wives  and  children,  be,  after  death,  to 
sleep  quietly  in  your  graves,  or  whether  you  be  to  be 
sold  and  cut  up,  like  dogs  and  horses. 

^  .  TO   THE 

RT.  HON.  THE  LORDS  SPIRITUAL  AND  TEMPORAL  IN 
PARLIAMENT  ASSEMBLED. 

The  petition  of  William  CobbetTj  of  Kensington,  in  the 
county  of  Middlesex, 
Most  humbly  shows, 

That  your  petitioner  perceives,  thatthereis  again  abill  before  your 
Right  Honourable  House,  which  niU  make  it  legal  to  be  possessed 
of  dead  human  bodies,  to  cut  them  up,  without  the  sanction  of  any 
court  of  justice,  and  even  to  seU  aud  traffic  in  them,  as  in  the  car- 
casses of  the  beasts  that  perish. 

That  your  humble  petitioner  has  too  high  an  opinion  of  the  un- 
derstanding and  of  the  sincerity  of  your  lordships  to  believe,  that 
you  will  not  at  once  perceive  aud  to  avow  that  this  horrid  traffic 
must  necessarily  be  confined  to  the  bodies  of  the  poor,  seeing 
that  those  of  the  rich  will  never  be  exposed  to  any  of  the  causes 
from  which  that  traffic  must  arise  ;  and,  being  of  that  opinion,  he 
hopes  that  your  lordships  will   not  agree  to  a  bill,  which,   if  it 


1st  July,  1832.  285 

were,  unliappily,  to  become  a  lavr,  would  fill  the  minds^of  the  poorer 
part  of  the  people  with  inextinguishable  resentment  ao^ainst  those, 
to  respect  and  reverence  whom  they  have  hitherto  been  cordially 
disposed. 

That  it  is  with  inexpressible  disgust  that  your  petitioner  has 
beard  this  horrible  bill  justified  on  the  score  of  wiiat  its  defenders 
have  dared  to  call  humanity y  pretending  that,  without  allowing  a 
free  trade  in  human  bodies,  the  Legis'ature  has  no  means  of  pre- 
venting such  bodies  from  being  killed  for  sale ;  that,  in  answer 
to  this  hypocritical  pretence,  the  poorer  part  of  the  people  observe, 
that  the  law  has  always  found  the  effectual  means  of  protecting  the 
dead  bodies  of  cattle,  sheep,  swine,  and  poultry,  of  punishing  with 
death  the  purloiners  of  those  bodies  ;  and  that  your  lordships  have, 
alas  !  passed  laws  (which  are  still  in  force)  for  transporting  beyond 
the  seas,  men  having,  in  the  night-time,  and  in  or  near  a  cover, 
the  dead  body  of  a  hare,  pheasant,  or  partridge,  in  their  possession. 

That  the  poorer  part  of  the  people  thus  see,  that  even  whea 
these  wild  and  insignificant  animals,  these  mere  objects  of  the 
sports  of  the  rich,  are  to  be  guarded  ;  when  new  poor-laws, 
new  trespasses,  new  misdemeanours,  new  felonies,  new  treasons, 
new  and  more  severe  modes  of  imprisonment  and  punishment,  are 
to  be  enacted  ;  that,  w^hen  to  tax,  to  restrain,  or  to  punish  them, 
is  the  object,  there  is  no  want  of  power  in  the  Legislature  ;  and  that 
it  becomes  important  only  when  called  upon  to  yield  thenvprotec- 
tion ;  and  your  humble  petitioner  begs  to  be  permitted  to  assure 
your  lordships,  that  the  people  clearly  perceive  all  this,  and  that 
the  ultimate  conse«|uences  of  that  perception,  especially  if  this 
act,  authorizing  an  open  trailic  in  their  bodies,  were  to  become  a 
law,  must  of  necessity  be  such  as  your  lordships,  above  all 
men,  would  have  reason  most  bitterly  to  deplore. 

That,  with  regard  to  the  assertion,  that  this  horrible  profanation 
of  the  tomb  is  necessary  to  the  perfection  of  surgical  and  medical 
science,  while  your  humble  petitioner  firmly  believes  the  contrary 
to  be  the  fact,  and  is  fully  warranted  in  that  belief,  not  only  by 
the  experience  of  all  former  ages,  but  by  the  declarations  of  the 
most  eminent  surgeons  and  physicians  of  our  own  day ;  while  he  is 
convinced  that  ignorance,  and  not  science,  is  promoted  and  kept 
in  countenance  by  this  cutting  up  of  human  bodies ;  while  it  is 
his  firm  conviction,  that  this  butcher-like  practice  does  not  at  all 
tend  to  the  preservation  of  human  life,  he  hopes  that  your  lord- 
ships, and  more  especially  the  lords  spiritual,  will  see,  eveu  in 
the  affirmative  of  that  proposition,  no  justification  of  the  proposed 
measure,  and  he  confidently  trusts  that  the  Most  Reverend  and 
Right  Reverend  members  of  your  Right  Honourable  House  will 
never  give  their  assent  to  a  bill,  which  has  a  direct  and  manifest 
tendency  to  root  from  the  minds  of  men  those  religious  opinions, 
which  make  a  distinction  between  the  future  state  of  human 
beings  and  that  of  brutes,  and  which  opinions  can  never  long 
continue  to  exist  after  the  sanction  of  your  lordships  shall  have 
been  given  to  this  brutalizing  bill. 

That  all  nations,  even  the  most  barbarous,  have  shown  respect 
for  the  remains  of  the  dead ;  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  invariably 
speak  of  the  rites  of  burial  as  being  honourable,  and  of  the  refusal 


t 


286  Two-PENifY  Trash  ; 

of  those  rites  as  on  infamous  punishment  and  si  g-nal  disgrace ;  that 
in  the  15tli  chap,  of  Genesis,  ISth  verse,  it  is  recorded,  that  amongst 
the  gracious  promises  that  God  made  to  Abraham,  on  account  of 
his  faith,  one  was  that  he  should  he  buHed  in  a  good  old  age :  that 
Davjd  (2  Samuel,  chap. ii.),  when  the  men  of  Jabesh-Gilead  had 
burijed  Saul,  blessed  them  for  their  kindness,  and  said  the  Lord 
would  reward  them  ;  that  the  Psalmist,  iu  describing  the  desolation 
of  Jerusalem  by  the  hands  of  the  heathen,  says  that  these  latter 
had  given  the  dead  bodies  of  the  Israelites  to  be  meat  unto  the  fowls 
of  the  heavens,  that  they  shed  their  blood  like  v«ater,  and  that  there 
was  none  to  bury  them,  which,  he  adds,  has  made  the  Israelites  a 
reproach  to  the  other  nations;  that  in  Ecclesiastes,  chap  vi., 
verse  3,  it  is  said,  that  if  a  man  have  ever  so  prosperous  and  long  a 
life,  il'  he  have  no  burial  he  had  better  never  have  been  born  ;  that 
we  find  by  Ezekiel,  chap,  xxxix.,  that  even  enemies  were  to  be 
buried,  and  that  if  a  human  bone  was  found  above  ground,  it  was 
to  be  deemed  a  duty  to  inter  it;  that  the  prophet  Isaiah,  chap.xiv., 
says  that  the  King  of  Babylon  shall  be  kept  out  of  the  grave,  like 
an  abominable  branch,  and  shall  not  be  buried,  because  he  has  been 
a  tyrant;  that  the  prophet  Jeri:mi ah,  chap.  vii.  and  viii.,  at  the 
conclusion  of  a  long  and  terrible  denunciation  against  the  Jews, 
tells  them  that  they  shall  not  be  gathered  nor  be  buried,  and  that 
they  shall  be  as  dung  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  ;  that  the  same 
prophet,  chap,  xiv.,  says,  that  the  people  who  listen  to  false  prophets 
shall  die  of  famine  and  the  sword,  and  shall  have  none  to  bury  them  ; 
that  the  same  prophet,  chap,  xvi.,  foretelling  the  ruin  of  the 
Jews,  says  that  they  shall  die  of  grief,  that  they  shall  not 
be  lamented,  neither  shall  they  be  buried,  but  shall  be  as 
dung  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  ;  that  the  same  prophet, 
chap,  xxii.,  pronounces  judgment  on  Jehoiakim,  kiijg  of 
Judah,  for  covetousness,for  shedding  innocent  blood,  for  oppression 
and  violence,  that  he  shall  be  buried  with  the  burial  of  an  asSy 
drawn  and  cast  before  the  gates  of  Jerusalem  ;  that  in  the  New 
Testament,  we  find  that  devout  men  carried  Stephen  to  his  burial  ; 
and  finally,  that  by  our  own  burial-service  and  canons  we  are 
taught,  that  to  be  buried  in  consecrated  ground  is  a  right  belong- 
ing to  every  person  who  has  been  baptized,  who  is  not,  at  the  hour 
of  death,  excommunicated,  and  who  has  not  killed  him  or  herself. 
That  seeing  that  such  is  the  language  of  Holy  Writ,  your  hum- 
ble petitioner  has  waited  until  now,  hoping  that  the  bill  in  question 
would  be  zealously  and  effectually. oppi)sed  by  the  clergy  of  the 
Established  Church  ;  that  if  human  bodies  can  be  legally  sold  and 
cut  up  into  pieces,  without  any  detriment  to  our  faith,  our  hope, 
our  religious  feeling  ;  if  no  burial-service  is  at  all  necessary  in 
these  cases  ;  if  this  be  told  to  the  people  by  this  bill,  it  is  manifest, 
that  that  same  people  will  not  long  think  that  the  burial-service 
can  in  any  case  be  necessary,  and  that  they  will,  in  a  short  time,  look 
upon  all  other  parts  of  the  church-service  as  equally  useless  ;  be- 
cause as  your  petitioner  presumes,  there  is  no  j^round  whatever  for 
believing  in  the  sacredness  of  one  rite  or  ceremony  any  more  than 
in  that  of  another,  and  that,  of  course,  if  the  Burial  of  the  Dead 
can  be  dispensed  with,  so  may  Haptism,  Confirmation,  Marriage, 
and  the  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper. 


Ut  July,  1832.  287 

That,  if  this  sacrilegious  bill  were  to  become  a  law,  your  bumble 
petitioDer  would  beg  leave  to  ask,  what  the  people  must,  in  future, 
think  of  the  ceremony  of  the  consecrating  of  ground  ;  what  of  any 
part  of  the  things  ordered  and  enjoined  in  the  Book  of  Commou 
Prayer  ;  and  especially,  what  of  the  fees,  which  have  for  ages  beeti^ 
and  which  are  still,  paid  for  saying  prayers  over  the  bodies  of  the 
dead?  That,  in  England  and  VVales,  there  are  more  than  tea 
thousand  church  benefices  with  care  of  souls;  that  those,  who  are 
charged  with  this  care,  have  hitherto  taught  us,  that  that  care  requires 
the  due  performance  of  the  burial  service,  and  justifies  the  demand 
of  fees  for  that  performance;  that  it  is  as  well  for  morals  and  reli- 
gion that  our  bodies  be  sold  and  cut  up,  as  that  they  be  buried  in 
consecrated  ground  with  the  usual  eolemities,  or  it  is  not  as  well  ; 
that,  if  the  latter,  the  intended  law  is  injurious  to  morals  and  reli- 
gion ;  that,  if  the  former,  well  may  we  ask,  to  what  end,  for  what 
purpose,  we  have  been  enjoined  to  perform  the  burial  service,  and 
have  been  compelled  to  pay  burial  fees,  for  so  many  ages  ? 

That  the  horror  of  the  poorer  sort  of  people  at  the  practices 
which  are  authorized  by  this  bill,  and  their  conviction  that  they 
themselves  are  principally  the/>bjects  of  it,  are  clearly  and  strongly 
evinced  in  the  fact,  that  they  have  all  over  England  formed  them- 
selves into  clubs  for  the  purpose  of  providing  the  means  of  watching 
the  graves  of  each  otlier  and  those  of  their  near  and  dear  relations, 
a  factto  their  everlasting  honour,  and  showing  that  amongst  them, 
at  any  rate,  human  feelings  have  not  yet  been  banished  from  the 
breast;  that,  however,  your  humble  petitioner  hopes,  that  your 
Right  Honourable  House,  who  are  their  natural  guardians,  and  who 
have  in  so  many  cases  been  their  defence  against  sordid  and  un- 
feeling measure^,  will  now  come  to  their  relief  and  protection  ;  and 
that,  to  this  end,  you  will  not  only  reject  the  brutal  bill  aforesaid, 
but  that  you  will  be  pleased  to  pass  a  bill,  making  it  felony  in  any 
person  whatever  to  have  a  dead  body  in  his  or  her  possession,  ex- 
cept for  the  usual  purpose  of  Christian  burial,  or  except  the  posses- 
sion be  founded  on  a  sentence  agreeably  to  law,  passed  in  a  court 
of  justice. 

And  your  petitioner  will  ever  pray, 
^    Kensington,  23  June,  lfe32.  Wm.  COBBETT. 


"^      PLEDGES 

TO    BE    GIV^K    BY    MEMBERS     CHOSEN    TOR    THE 
REFORMED    PARLIAMENT. 

The  citizens  of  London  have,  upon  this  important  sub- 
ject, adopted  the  following  resolutions,  of  which  they 
recommend  the  adoption  by  all  the  counties  and  all  the 
BOROUGHS,  and  which  recommendation  will,  I  hope,  be 
strictly  attended  to  :^— 

Resolved,  1st.  That  for  one  man  to  represent  another, 


288  Two-penny  Trash. 

means  that  he  is  to  act  for  that  other,  and  in  a  manner 
agreeably  to  his  wishes  and  instructions. 

2nd.  That  members  chosen  to  be  representatives  in 
Parliament  ought  to  do  such  things  as  their  constituents 
>vish  and  direct  them  to  do, 

3rd.  That,  therefore,  it  appears  to  this  meeting,  that 
those  to  whom  the  law  now  commits  the  sacred  trust  of 
the  power  of  choosing  members,  who  are  to  represent  their 
non-voting  neighbours  as  well  as  themselves,  ought  to  be 
scrupulously  careful  to  choose  no  man  on  whom  firm  re- 
liance cannot  be  placed,  that  he  will  obey  the  wishes  and 
directions  of  his  constituents. 

4th.  That,  in  order  to  obtain  the  best  possible  ground 
of  such  reliance,  every  candidate  ought  to  give  the  pledges 
following ;  to  wit, 

That  I  will  neglect  nothing  in  my  power  to  cause,  in 
the  very  first  session,  a  total  abolition  of  the  tithes,  a  re- 
peal of  the  assessed  taxes,  the  taxes  on  malt,  hops,  and 
soap ;  and  these  having  been  repealed,  I  pledge  myself  to 
the  immediate  consideration  of  a  revision  of  the  Corn  Bill  5 
and  I  ifurther  pledge  myself  to  do  everything  within  my 
power  to  cause  the  abolition  of  all  sinecures  and  un- 
merited pensions,  and  a  repeal  of  that  daring  act  of  usur- 
pation called  the  Septennial  Act :  and  I  will,  at  all  times 
and  in  all  things,  act  conformably  to  the  wishes  of  a  ma- 
jority of  my  constituents,  deliberately  expressed  5  or  I  will, 
at  their  request,  resign  to  them  the  trust  with  which  they 
have  honoured  me. 

5.  That  we,  the  electors  of  the  City  of  London,  pledge 
ourselves  to  each  other  and  to  our  country,  that  we  will 
give  our  votes  to  no  man  who  will  not  give  the  above 
pledges,  and  that  we  earnestly  recommend  to  our  fellow- 
electors,  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom,  to  make,  and 
strictly  to  adhere  to,  the  same  determination. 

Printed  by  Wm.  Cobbett,  Jobnson's-court, Fleet-street. 


.;5 


■.^.m 


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